For the Good Times
by greenstuff2
Summary: Don't say a word about tomorrow or forever ...
1. Chapter 1

_**Part One**_

 _ **No Need to Watch the Bridges that we're Burning**_

Oh God, she peeled open one eyelid with enormous difficulty. The curtains were wide open and the beautiful Las Vegas sunshine was streaming in and was making her wince. She appeared to still be alive, if only just, even if her mouth did feel like she'd eaten a whole pack of cream crackers straight out the packet without bothering to put anything on them and even if she had been dribbling on her pillow ….. still, she peeled the other eyelid open with even more difficulty, shit the light hurt, at least it all looked familiar, it was definitely her room and she was definitely in her bed, the one she'd slept in for the last three nights since they'd got here. It was just that she didn't appear to be wearing a stitch of clothing, no knickers or anything, and had absolutely no recollection of getting undressed, actually she had no recollection of even getting back to the room, full stop. The last thing she could remember clearly was being in some tacky karaoke bar with the stag party that she and Lees had somehow managed to crash at some point the previous evening and she'd been bawling 'bastard' into her Vodka shot before ordering another one because someone, no, some bloody loved-up couple, had been singing "Don't go Breaking my Heart".

Certain unmistakeable and horribly unpleasant facts were starting to creep into her consciousness. First, she wasn't alone in her room, in her bed, and that unless Lisa had decided to give up her own bed in her own room in favour of sharing, and she hadn't noticed her having any lesbian tendencies before, or had given up on shaving her legs for the last year or three, Molly hastily jerked her foot away from the hairy leg, she was definitely in bed with a stranger. A bloke. A strange bloke, a strange hairy bloke and she didn't know whether he was stark bollock naked like she was and didn't quite dare lift up the duvet to have a quick peep, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to know, oh fuck, oh fuckety, fucking fuck, what the hell had she done? How the hell had she ended up here?

She peeled her eyelids open wide enough to check out the face asleep on the puffy white pillow next to hers, the person who owned the hairy legs, blue eyes, blondish hair, and a sort of brownish blondish stubble, not bad looking and definitely a bloke and oh shit, shitting hell _ **, blue eyes**_ , which meant that he was awake, oh holy crap. She didn't know him, except she sort of thought she might just possibly recognise him from the stag party, not the fucking groom she didn't think, so supposed she should be grateful for small mercies, very small ones, and whoever he was he didn't seem to be quite as hungover as her because he didn't look as bad as she knew that she did. He moved and stuck a hairy leg out on top of the duvet and he was, as she'd feared, definitely starkers unless he was wearing a posing pouch or something, but somehow she didn't think so… Oh god, all there was to worry about now was whether they'd had sex. She didn't recall the earth moving or anything, and surely she'd have noticed _something_ if they'd had proper sex, or even if it had been 'nearly' sex, and it wasn't like she could ask him, was it? What could she say? It would be insulting, any normal bloke would be mortified if the girl they were in bed with had to ask, and anyhow in her badly hung over, brain dead condition she couldn't think of the right words to ask him anything.

She was just grateful she was still on the pill, that she hadn't flushed them all down the bog like she'd been going to when ….. well ….. so no matter what had gone on, at least there wasn't going to have to be a frantic dash around Vegas looking for somewhere to get hold of the 'morning after' that was if they even did it here, how would she know? She put her hand down and found that the irritating itch on the side of her right foot appeared to be the foil wrapper from a condom which was a bit of a mixed blessing, it seemed likely that they had had sex which was not something she was exactly over the moon about, obviously not very memorable sex either, but on the other hand at least she could be sure she wasn't going home with a nice dose of Chlamydia or Herpes to keep her company, and where the fuck was Lees, how could she have let her get herself in this bloody mess?

"Morning …" He looked as awkward as she felt but at least he was English and not a septic tank "I'm Adam by the way" He thought for a minute, obviously embarrassed at his needing to ask "And you are? I mean, what's your name, I seem to have forgotten, sorry"

"I'm Molly, how do you ….." She stopped herself before she could put her hand out to shake his, oh shit, this was bloody shit, awful, it had been forever since she'd last had a one night stand, it had been well before everything, before Afghan, before well ….. and even then she'd never had sex that she couldn't remember with someone that she couldn't remember either the following day, awkward didn't begin to describe it "I'm just going to …. ummmm … bathroom, so can you just …. ummm .. not look for a minute .."

It seemed bloody ridiculous in the circumstances bearing in mind what had obviously gone on when she was still pissed but the room looked like some sort of sexual assault crime scene off of CSI with clothes spread all over the floor and she really needed to find her knickers, and her phone as well, which turned out to be half hidden under his boxers which she picked up between her thumb and finger trying her best not to shudder. She spotted her knickers immediately, although where the fuck her bra had ended up was anyone's guess, but at least she could cover her bum and minimise the amount of flesh she was displaying in front of him. She didn't stop to try and put them on, just clutched them and instinctively hunched over, and even though he still had his head turned away, not looking, and she ran, well scuttled really, alternating between putting an arm across her tits and putting her hands over her bush to do her best to … hide .. her bits. Even though it was ridiculous she was mortified and desperate to get to the sanctuary of the bathroom, a room with a door, a door with a lock and a bathrobe hanging on the hook.

She didn't wait to put the robe on before locking the door and just sinking to sit on the floor and put her head in her hands before leaning back against the cold side of the bath, powering up her phone and praying that she hadn't left it on all night kyboshing the battery and carefully stayed within easy reach of the bog in case she did actually need to puke, which seemed highly likely. She had no idea what the time was, it felt early but … could be anytime … but she didn't give a shit if Lisa was still out cold and snoring, happily tucked up fast asleep in her own bed, on her own, lucky cow, so that a call would wake her up, or get her out the shower or even interrupt her having a crap, Lisa was her mate, so why the hell had she let her take some complete stranger back to her room with her? She knew that Molly was struggling, that she was miserable and ripe for a bit of getting under one bloke to get over another, but why hadn't she stopped her? Surely that's what mates are for, to stop you doing stupid stuff like that and he could be a fucking mass murderer or a terrorist or something, could even have been a fifty shades sort of bloke so that by now she'd be tied up and tortured, unlikely she knew, but he could be ….

"Morning ….. _good night_ was it? How do you feel this morning, cos I feel like shit, don't know what the fuck we were drinking last night, fun though, wasn't it?"

"Was it? Nice of you to ask but I feel horrible and what the fuck was so much fun? It don't feel all that funny from where I'm sitting, so why did you let me do it? Or was it you set me up?"

"Course not, Oh come on, Molls, I didn't set you up and it was just a laugh, nothing else so no harm done, eh? and it was your idea to take him back with you, mate, not mine, you thought it was a right laugh last night, so where's your sense of humour this morning?"

"I dunno Lees, hiding in bed with that bloke I don't know that I didn't have to shag but seem to have done, anyway, and what was so bloody funny about it? Go on tell me, I can't remember and I could do with a laugh, before I cry"

"Shit, don't you remember? Bet you haven't looked at your phone either have you? Look, don't worry it was just a bit of fun, honestly it was for a laugh so it wasn't real and you were well up for it last night, so just tell him, whatshisname to piss off and then forget all about it now, I mean, we're going home in a couple hours and it was just a bit of messing, lot of fun though"

"Yeah you said, WHAT WAS?"

"Look at your phone and then we'll go get some breakfast, might as well cos we've already paid for it haven't we?"

"Okay"

The first few pictures didn't really add up to much, a few of the outside of the casino and a couple inside and then some jobsworth security person telling her to stop, that it was forbidden, and then the hotel, a selfie with her and Lees grinning like lunatics on the steps, so that she began to relax a bit as she carried on looking for the pictures that could be called 'just a bit of fun'. Shame she couldn't remember that much of it after the karaoke bar, but still …. and these weren't that bad, some of them were well out of focus, which was probably just as well, and there were tons and tons of someone's feet, not hers, and then of the floor and a couple of the side of the bar with someone's hand waving about in front of the lens, and then there was quite a few of someone's arse in a pair of horrible bright red trousers and then her smile slipped and her hands began to shake with rapidly mounting horror as some of it started to come back to her.

Their so-called _Smurf pilgrimage_ with the incredibly tacky "chapel" and its plastic altar and vase of plastic flowers and the little fat bloke with his wig on so that he had a dark quiff, a wig that looked like it was made of those nylon pot scourer things that Nan used to use. He was obviously the star in the look-alike Elvis gig so he'd squeezed himself into a shite white onesie with a few sequins stuck on it here and there and he kept on twitching his lip up trying to do what he thought was an Elvis type sneer, only it wasn't and he was nothing like as he stood there showing off every one of his rolls of flab. There were actually plenty of them, but most attractive of all, you could clearly see the outline of his knob and whoever was doing the video kept on zooming in for a close-up, even when he wasn't pulling at the crotch of the bloody thing, which he did a lot of the time…. She could definitely remember now how her and Lisa had laughed themselves sick about his ….. wedding tackle being on show ….. Oh shit.

The worst of it was there she was, someone, and she thought it was most likely Lees, had thoughtfully used her phone to record the whole thing. She was totally hammered so you could see that she could barely stand on her own two feet and looked like she was about to puke any second, she'd kept on swaying about when "Elvis" was talking so that someone, fuck knows who, but not her 'husband' the one standing next to her in the 'chapel' who was now in the room next door, in her bed, but someone, had kept on pushing her back upright. Her eyes were crossed as she'd peered at Elvis from under her hair which was all over the bloody shop so it was obvious that she couldn't see an awful lot, if anything, and she had red wine splattered all down the front of her best frock, the one that she'd bought to go out to dinner in Bath … the one that was now in a heap on the bedroom floor, at least she bloody well hoped it was wine. She had this purple plastic flower in her hand which looked like a sort of wrong coloured daffodil and she kept on waving it about like she was conducting a bleeding orchestra as she exchanged vows, of a sort, with whatshisname, Adam, the bloke in her bed who was probably busting for a pee by now, not that she cared.

"I promise to … what is it now? ….. shut up, shut up, I know, WILL YOU ALL FUCKING SHUT IT? I know what to say, I'll love you for forever, yeah?"

"Oh yeah, ditto"

Oh god, Oh god, Oh god, how bloody romantic …

She closed her eyes at the wave of pure horror at the whole thing, but it was the 'ditto' that really got to her, the thing that made her stomach lurch as if she was about to throw up. This was ….. well, she had to wake up any second, she bloody had to, Christ alive, there was no way that this could be real, she would never have said that to anyone else, it was special …. theirs … it was their word.

She was going to kill Lisa, slowly and as painfully as she could and her so-called mate could forget all about them getting breakfast, she was never going to have any sort of appetite for food ever again. She hated Vegas breakfasts almost as much as she hated Vegas Vodka, which was almost as much as she hated Lees, in fact she hated just about everything about this shite holiday in this shite dump. She was never, ever going to drink Vodka ever again, and she was never ever going anywhere ever again as long as she lived. The good thing was that they were flying home in a few hours and then she could forget all about it.

She would go back in there now and tell whatsits , thingy, him, that it had been very nice meeting him but would he mind just fucking right off now and then once she got home she could do whatever you have to do to get rid, and could then delete it from her memory as well as off her phone. With a bit of bloody luck bloody Adam in there would have the decency to live in deepest darkest north of somewhere or other so that she would never have to clap eyes on him ever again.

The worst of it was this was all down to her. The trip and the visit to the chapel was supposed to have been about _closure,_ whatever the fuck that meant, not only for Smurf but … anyway it was supposed to help her to move on, which she hadn't believed in the first place, so it served her bloody right for listening to Lees and then actually thinking there might be something in all her touchy-feely self-help bollocks.

 _ **A/N: This story is going to be in three parts and my thanks to Elvis, the real one that is, for the title and the chapter headings and for the "make believe you love me one more time" music which has kept running through my head, not to mention the words, as I've been writing it… Chapter two sees them back in the U.K… Be kind, publishing the first chapter of anything is unbelievably scary ….**_

-OG-


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'll get Along, You'll find Another**_

 _ **Bath – Three months …. One week … Five days … Earlier …**_

Everything in her world had been just what she'd wanted it to be when she'd got back from her second tour of Afghan, the 'perfect' that he'd promised her and that she'd told him she didn't do, she missed Smurf of course, she'd been devastated at what had happened before she'd gone. She'd been worried about Charles as well, he'd hated it when all that stuff had gone on with him and Candy, Smurf's mum, the way that she'd said she held him responsible for Smurf dying, and for Geraint as well, when none of it had been his fault and she probably knew that really, but she was just lashing out and he was in her firing line, but he was grieving too. But at least he was on the mend and roaring through his rehab at Headley although he was still determined that he was going to resign his commission and leave the army, going to do something else although he didn't have any idea yet what exactly, still there was no rush, he was still recovering so was still a serving soldier.

Best of all it appeared that he still felt the same way about her as he had before she'd gone on her short tour, the one that had been all his idea, and he'd seemed over the moon to see her when she got back, and was still in one piece. He'd been more than happy, as she had, to spend every spare moment that they could find just spending time together at his parent's place in Bath, well, actually spending most of their time in his bed at his parent's place in Bath because they'd found it very hard to keep their hands off each other.

The hardest thing of all for her turned out to be that she didn't see it coming.

It didn't matter what he said, she didn't believe him and none of it should have surprised her because she'd always known she wasn't good enough for him, that he was way, way out of her league and that someone like him was never going to look at someone like her, not seriously. It was funny really how she'd been in this bloody bubble ever since all the shit had gone down in Afghan, maybe he had as well but she couldn't say, but she'd been kidding herself when she'd been happily building bloody … _castles in the air ….._ about them and the future. Actually she'd had it spot on when she'd stood with Smurf at Laugharne and said how Captain James would never even be friends with the likes of …. well, people like them, someone like her. That day felt like a lifetime ago, but it wasn't, it wasn't long ago at all, just a matter of months, but she felt _old_ now next to that girl.

-OG-

She'd been pissed on far too many nights around that time, it was another one of those traditional things that you do after you've done the going to the hairdressers and having your hair cut off, which she had, well she'd tried, but all those years it had taken for her to grow it that long, all the suffering trying to wash the sand out or brush the tangles out of it when she was out in Afghan, all the agonising over whether she could bear to go and have her split ends cut off had all got to her when the hairdresser had kept on asking if she was sure, if she was _absolutely sure_. All she kept thinking about was that he'd liked to fiddle with it, had liked to wind it round his fingers and turn it into ringlets and then tuck it back behind her ears, and he'd kept on saying that he would shoot her if she ever had it cut, so that tears had begun to pour down her face until the hairdresser, who on second thoughts might have been a trainee, had ended up making her a cup of tea and listening to her tale of woe before suggesting a compromise and cutting about an inch off of the bottom.

She'd done the traditional crying night after night into her pillow, had cried bloody buckets because Capt'n Ross seemed to her to be more interested in icy knickers Elizabeth, widow of his drippy cousin, but a lady, than feisty Demelza, the one who loved him, but who definitely was not, bastard. She'd woken up one morning with a sore bum, which she'd thought was because she must have bashed into something the night before when she was a tiny bit … under the weather … but which turned out to be a slut stamp on her arse. An emoji, the one with the little red heart, and she had no fucking clue what she'd been thinking of because what sort of tattoo place had they been to for fuck sake? What sort of dive did an arse tattoo on someone who was that plastered? A nice infection on her backside, a bit of blood poisoning maybe, so that she'd have to go and visit the M.O. or even worse hepatitis or something was really going to help to make her feel better …...

She hadn't done the traditional going out with mates to spend an evening slagging him off. Instead, she'd turned herself into the life and soul of the party, up for going out every night with one lot or another, drinking far more than was good for her and telling herself that she was having a blast. No-one asked her about him, well they wouldn't because none of them knew anything about him, had never heard of him, which was a bit of a bonus now because she didn't have to explain anything to anyone, she wasn't sure that she could, not without making a total tit of herself.

It was only when her and Lisa had been propping up the bar one night for a bit of a session and Lisa had been doing all her agony aunt bollocks with all that self-help bullshit and self-awareness crap and going on and on about the importance of getting closure and dealing with your grief, how talking about it would help whereas bottling up it up wouldn't that she'd told her that it wasn't grief for Smurf that was tearing her to bits, well not only that. She'd told her about all of it although she couldn't swear to what she had said exactly or how much she'd actually spilled or even if what she'd said had made any sense because it might possibly have been a bit of a drunken ramble, but Lees had seemed to get the gist. She'd kindly offered, as good friends do, that she was willing to arrange to track him down and cut his knob off, then staple it to his forehead and turn him into _unicock_ if that was what Molly wanted and had then patted her arm before going on with the good mate mantra of always looking for a silver lining, however difficult it proved to be.

"Listen Molls, you do know don't you?" Lisa was not only badly slurring but had obviously forgotten about turning down the volume switch as she whispered in a shouting sort of way as well as waving her arms around so that she almost fell off her stool "And it's bloody well true"

"What is? What you talking about?"

"Much better to find out he's a massive knob before your Nan bought herself a new hat"

Molly nodded, but didn't actually want to say anything, she didn't want to agree or to laugh, scared that it might be tempting fate to say something bad about him, even if she didn't mean it, if she was only saying it. He wasn't what Lees said, not really, and all Molly wanted was for him to wake up and smell the coffee, or that poncey muck he insisted on drinking rather than Nescafe like any normal person, and for him to realise what a huge bloody mistake this being apart was, massive, and then for him to come and find her, so that she could tell him to fuck right off and that it was far too late now for him to say he missed her and couldn't live without her. Not that any of it was going to happen of course, he was not going to come back and if by some bloody miracle he ever did she wouldn't say anything like that to him, she still loved him, hated him most of the time, but loved him too. There were a lot of days when she wondered if she would ever be able to just forget all about him and move on, find someone else.

"You know I picked the wrong one don't you Lees? If I'd of been sensible I'd 'ave picked Smurf and then him and me, well …. we'd of been two little pigs in shit right now, we'd of been in Vegas, sitting there … having a quiet little drink ….. he loved me you know, he didn't think I weren't good enough"

"Course you're bloody good enough, what you talking about, it was him not good enough for you, not Smurf I don't mean Smurf, 'n I'm sorry … I hate to say it but … I think you might be getting it a bit wrong, I mean I didn't even know the bloke, never met him … or the other one, don't think I wanna know him, dick splash, I didn't know either of them, did I? but you didn't love Smurf, didn't even fancy him so that would have been a fucking disaster wouldn't it?"

"Ssshh, stop shouting" Molly put her finger to her lips "Alright, okay, I could make you right, might have been, but probably no more than what did happen"

"Hate to tell you … oops said that already didn't I? But if you had of picked him, Smurf, you'd of been sitting there now in some bar in Las Vegas having a quiet little drink ….. with a corpse"

She didn't want to laugh, but couldn't seem to help herself as Lisa started to guffaw and snort until they were both falling off their stools with laughing, and the tears, which were never far away, started to run down her face. Somehow it seemed so completely wrong to think that anything to do with Smurf's death was in any way funny, but a great many of her conversations with him had been on the cruel side, just like this one, and she missed him …...

"Why did he want you to go to Vegas with him? I mean, was it going to be a leg-over weekend or something, you never said"

"Nah, he knew that weren't gonna be it" She paused and thought "Think he did anyhow cos I told him often enough, but he wanted us to go together and for me to wear this red frock he picked, really tarty, so would have made me look like I was touting for trade round Kings Cross, but he liked it …" Molly stopped talking long enough to look for a tissue so that she could stop the loud sniffing, then gave it up as hopeless and used the paper serviette that had once been wrapped round their cutlery "He wanted me to wear it when we went to see Elvis in his chapel" She giggled, remembering "and then when I told him that Elvis was dead, he pretended to be all shocked 'n said he didn't even know that he'd been ill …. Fuck-muppet … he wanted us to go to the casino so I could walk in front of him in that horrible dress and gamble all his money on the roulette wheel. I was going to be his lucky mascot or some'ing, gonna win him a fucking fortune ….. poor Smurf"

"Bit shit that, that he never got there"

"Yeah, my bloody fault he's dead Lees"

"How do you work that out?"

"I'm s'posed to be a medic and I saw him every day, well apart from when he was in the QE, and I never noticed there was something really wrong with him, he was with me and we was talking and laughing 'n that ….. just before he keeled over and he'd said that he had these jitterbugs in his head but I honestly thought he was just a bit fragged, like we all were"

"I thought he died of something in his brain, that's what you said and that he was in hospital just before, so with all the doctors and the tests and the ….. whatsits, scans 'n things how come they never found out he was ill, and why would you when they didn't?"

"I knew him, they didn't"

"It's not your fault, Molls, really it's not, but you know what, we should go, you and me ….. go to Vegas, go to the casino and lose all our money on the slots cos don't think I'll have enough for roulette, we can find one of them cheap deals on the net, it'll be a bit of a laugh and you can get c _losure"_

"Yeah right, like I believe in all that bollocks" She was now laughing and crying at the same time "Sorry Lees but I don't see it, don't think it's my ball bag at all, but tell you what, I'd like to go, can't hurt can it?" Molly's nose was still running so that she was sniffing as well as giggling and shaking her head, remembering how excited Smurf had been that day when he'd shown her the picture of that god-awful red frock "But just so long as you know, I'm not wearing a red frock, well, haven't even got one have I?"

She'd smiled as she thought about the day he'd shown her that picture, but could never bring herself to remember the day that he'd turned up at home with the dress in a box, because that was the day that he'd died ….. she'd given the dress to the charity shop, she couldn't have worn it for all the money in the world ….

-OG-

The three of them, Molly, Adam, her 'husband' of a few hours and Lisa, who couldn't stop giggling as she still seemed to find the whole thing hysterically funny, which was probably because it wasn't her, sat outside the hotel dining room and did their best to get as much of a tan as they could in their last few hours of Nevada sunshine. She probably would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't for the hangover nausea, the cracking headache that was making her feel even more sick if that was possible, and all the horrible memories that kept on popping up in her brain, especially the memory of saying that word, and the way it had happened,a memory which was breaking her heart. She couldn't wait to get home and put it all behind her, to get back to work and forget all about it, and sitting there killing time before they went to the airport was driving her nuts, even though none of them had got the energy to _do_ anything else instead. Bloody Adam kept on saying that he should go back to his own hotel, should go and see if he could find the rest of the lads and make sure they were all still alive. He said that the bride, who was his sister, would never forgive him if the groom, whose name was Derek apparently, had ended up in jail or had gone missing or worse.

Molly thought that Adam leaving to check on them was an excellent plan, not that she gave a shit about bloody Derek, she could only just vaguely remember what he looked like, but she wanted to tell Adam to fuck off and that her and Lisa would try and survive the loss as best they could. She badly wanted to say "Must you? Well, s'pose if you 'ave to, bye" but bit her tongue and settled for a sick grin because she simply hadn't got the energy to get arsey with him. Anyway she wasn't blaming him, not really, what had happened to her wasn't his fault, it was hers and it didn't matter how sorry for herself she got, and she did, she wasn't a victim.

No-one had put a gun to her head and forced her to do something so unbelievably fucking stupid, she was the one that had done her best to drink the bloody place dry and then let herself down and she had to stop doing it. It wasn't going to help and she didn't even want to think what _he_ would say if he found out, which he wouldn't of course, why would he? But she couldn't help wondering whether he'd be upset if he knew about the 'Ditto' but then decided probably not, probably wouldn't even remember by now and even if he did he'd more than likely just shake his head, after all she wasn't anything to him anymore, was she?

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your feedback, this is not going to be an update a day situation but I had the first two chapters ready and was told by someone lovely last Friday, she knows who she is, to step away from the delete button, so I'm doing my best. The longer you wait between writing and uploading the more editing you do, and the more likely you are to start deleting because you've read it ninety times, or maybe that's just me! For those who were desperate to know why they're not together, all will become clear – eventually. Hope you enjoy this.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Don't Say a Word about Tomorrow or Forever**_

It was obvious that he was okay, Adam, not a bad sort of bloke, even if he wasn't someone who would ever set her soul on fire, not now and not ever, and even if he was the last bloke left standing on earth she'd rather go without. Six foot two of blonde beefcake with about one and a half working brain cells, a serious contender for a dumb blonde award if they had one for blokes, which was probably a bit of a Dawsey unfair assessment because she wasn't what you might call at her best either, and it was not his fault that he wasn't her idea of a soul-mate. And it didn't matter how often or how hard Lisa kept on nudging her and winking at her in a suggestive sort of way and nodding her head and lifting her eyebrows towards him when he wasn't looking, in fact she could keep on doing that until the cows came home and it wasn't going to make a scrap of difference, all it did was make Molly want to punch her. He was not for her.

Another awkward bloody silence and lull in the conversation had him telling them all about himself and how he worked in this wine bar and how, much to Lisa's delight and her utter dismay, he didn't even have the decency to live fucking miles away. Guildford, he sodding well lived in sodding Guildford which was only a couple of miles up the road from barracks, something that was more than a bit shit when she wanted him to live, well, the Outer Hebrides or somewhere in one of those little boxes off the north end of Scotland would have been good, somewhere bloody miles and miles away so that there was zero chance of the people at home ever finding out anything about all of this shit. She didn't know him well enough to know if he could be trusted to keep his bloody gob shut like he promised or if he was one of them blokes who'd go home and shout from the bleeding rooftops about "what I did on my holidays" especially when he'd had the odd glass or three. If the lads ever found out she would never live it down. Ever. She didn't want anyone to know, and that meant anyone, anyone at all.

 _ **Aldershot – one month later**_

If Only. The two most fucking annoying words in the English Language, if only it had turned out to be that easy. She had no idea now why she'd believed what Lisa had said, why she'd thought that the other girl would know any more about it than her. She didn't, she couldn't have been more bloody wrong if she'd bloody well set out to be. Lisa had kept on saying that _'someone_ ' had said, but she couldn't remember who that _someone_ was now, and that they'd told her but she couldn't say now what exactly they had told her. Although to be fair even if she'd known there was bugger all she could have done about it because by the time she'd sobered up a bit it was too late, and Molly could now remember enough of that evening to wish that she couldn't remember any of it …

Was it as easy to delete the whole thing as it had been to delete the pictures off her phone? Nope. Was a Vegas marriage legal in the U.K. when both them the happy couple had been so totally out of it that they couldn't even remember being there never mind saying anything? And didn't they have to be living there for a bit, post banns, get a bloody license …. something? Well, apparently as long as they'd showed their passports and signed the papers, Oh and most important of all, paid Elvis his blood money, then that was enough. Had they done any of that, signed anything? Paid anything? Neither of them had a fucking clue, until Adam checked it out with the Clark County Office, and guess what, found that yes they had, even though Molly couldn't even remember having her passport out with her, let alone showing it to anyone, in fact, she was pretty bloody sure that she hadn't so it looked like fat Elvis in the onesie might have lied to get his hands on his money. But there was no way they could fucking prove it. And where was their marriage certificate? Anyone's bleeding guess, but they could have a copy if Adam ordered and paid for one, but it still hadn't arrived so that Molly was still clinging onto the vain hope that it was all some big cock up, mistaken something or other and that it was some other couple entirely. Wasn't of course, Lady Luck had obviously pissed right off out of it, still there was no harm in hoping.

Could they now get a divorce, like just say 'I divorce you' three times and then forget all about it? Yes they could, well sort of, but only after they'd been married for a year, and then one or other of them would have to file for divorce.

Lisa, of course, kept on trying to get her to give him a go, well she liked him and couldn't understand why Molly looked at her as if she was fucking insane when she said about not letting him be another one that got away, and kept saying that this one definitely wasn't a dick splash. She only packed it in and got a bit upset and tried to convince Molly she was only doing her best to help when Molly accused her of fancying him, of wanting her 'husband' for herself. She'd denied it vehemently of course, just kept saying loudly that it was because she was the one who knew all about what had happened before Vegas so that Molly made her promise on pain of death, or on her dog's life anyway, that she wouldn't tell a bleeding soul and would take the secret to the grave. Then the back-stabbing big mouth with no taste in men told all their mates about the 'wedding' so they'd all had a bloody good giggle, all except for Molly of course who was still struggling to see the funny side of any of it. She'd had to pretend a bit because if she'd shown that she _minded_ as much as she did they'd have kept on with the teasing and thinking that they were being funny and he was popular with them, her mates. Although she was bloody certain that their general approval had something to do with the number of 'on the house' rounds that he shoved in their direction whenever they drank in his bar, which was a lot because she couldn't think of a reasonable reason why she wanted to go and drink somewhere else, anywhere else would have done.

She didn't fancy him, not even when she'd sunk her own body weight in booze so that she had difficulty in remembering her own name, she couldn't seem to persuade herself that she wanted to shag him …. ever … again …. not if the first time was anything to go by. The decision that she'd come to on the morning after the night before in a Vegas hotel which had been about being 100% totally sensible and tee-total in the future hadn't survived the bad news about their marriage, or rather their divorce, because there are definitely times when only booze and quite a lot of it would do. So she'd set herself a new deadline for growing up, for being …. brilliant … and that was the day that she got her decree absolute though the post, something else that reminded her of him, of what she'd lost, not that she needed anything to remind her. And in spite of all the stuff in those dodgy self-help books that Lees had forced down her throat, all that touch-feely bollocks about how time would sort it, that it just needed for her have patience, well far as she could see time didn't seem to be taking care of any of it like they'd promised.

Adam couldn't be more different if he'd put in a shed-load of effort. What he liked to do, what he liked to read, she never actually saw Adam read anything except for the back page of the Sun or the take-away menu, what food he liked to eat, usually from the same menu, what films he liked to watch on tele, and in all the ways that you can't do anything about he was as different as it's possible for one bloke to be from another. Different height, well there wasn't much in that if she was being strictly honest, different colour eyes, Adam's were blue, quite often with red route map lines in them where he'd been drinking the profits, and he was usually a bit on the pale and pasty side so that he looked as though he could do with more sleep, although that could also be down to drinking the profits. He had different colour hair, not a dark curl in sight, just a sort of dirty blonde mop and it was longish, longer than army regulation cut, but not enough to make it look like he needed it cutting or anything and he was a totally different sort of build. He was much chunkier, okay maybe he was a tiny bit fat in places but that was because he lived on junk food and didn't do any running or anything, his idea of exercise was to stand on the terraces eating a pie while he jumped up and down because some bugger had scored a goal, so he looked much bigger.

His voice was possibly the best thing about him. It wasn't posh, he just had this definite West Country thing in it so that her dad always took the piss and imitated it like he was a yokel sort of thing, but that was because Adam came from Cornwall or somewhere shit like that, although Poldark he definitely wasn't, more's the pity. Her first impression of Adam had been absolutely spot on. Adam was thick … dim … so that he reminded her in a lot of ways of Mansfield Mike, although Mansfield was probably more like someone off University Challenge next to Adam, and if she'd met him in Guildford she wouldn't have looked at him twice, except maybe as a friendly barman. On reflection she thought it was a bit surprising that their paths hadn't crossed before her _pilgrimage_ to Vegas because she'd been in most of the wine bars in Guildford and had got pissed in most of them, if not all, so it must have been his night off when she'd visited his one.

It was obvious that he saw things very much the same way she did, he didn't love her either, even though she was pretty sure he'd probably 'oblige' and have sex if she came onto him or asked him to give it a go, but he certainly wasn't bothered. And in the end they'd talked for hours helped along by a bottle of cheap red, despite working in the wine bar he wasn't a wine snob, or maybe it was because he was a big tight, but they decided between them that their best plan was to wait out for the year and then move on with no hard feelings, and, helped along by the second bottle, they were not going to rub one another's noses in it by starting anything _significant_ with anyone else until it was all over, done and dusted.

So, even though she kept her own name, she was actually no longer Miss Dawes, Private Dawsey, RAMC, full of charm and magnetism, but Mrs Patterson, next of kin Adam Patterson, still RAMC, with a lot more cynicism and a hell of a lot less charm. Like it or not that was going to have to be her for the next year, until she could get a divorce and start over … all over again.

It didn't take long for word to get out and for the rumours to start spreading, although she didn't know why that should have come as any sort of surprise to her when she worked in a place that was a bloody rumour mill even if most of them did turn out to be total shite, but it did. She'd been sort of hoping that if she kept her head down and her gob tight shut no-one would believe any of it. She hadn't changed her Facebook status, it still said single and she'd stopped posting, no new pictures, no updates, nothing about anything, and she didn't answer any of the posts, e-mails or texts that she got from anyone, not the lads or Jackie or any of her other army pals asking her to tell them what the fuck was going on and whether what they'd heard was true.

She didn't move into Adam's flat, just spent the odd weekend there, but even right at the beginning when she'd been trying to work out whether she possibly _could,_ it was obvious that it was not going to happen. She didn't want a relationship with him, she actually didn't want a relationship with anyone ….. so she stayed over occasionally, often when he'd gone home to see his mum and dad when it was lovely to have the peace and privacy that you don't get in barracks. It wasn't exactly ideal of course, any of it, but it wasn't a disaster either and waiting out was something Molly had done before, she was used to it.

Her family were over the moon, thrilled, they all loved him to bits, well there was no earthly reason why they wouldn't because there was nothing to dislike about Adam, unless you were looking for brains or intelligence or wit or any of that sort of stuff, which they weren't. He was polite and he was good looking, he had a nice smile which he used a lot and he spoke nicely, not too posh or anything, and he was friendly with no strong opinions on anything so that he didn't argue with Dave, or Nan. He had all his own teeth and owned his own place, and best of all he had a job. And he had what her dad would call the ideal career, he served behind a bar.

She didn't tell the family anything about how they weren't really a couple, she never told them that although they were only married until they could get a divorce, and she never said how they'd met or about the wedding. She'd done a lot of lying, or creative explaining, about all that and had told them that the wedding photos had got themselves lost somewhere in the post and that the U.S. postal service were still looking for them. She wasn't 100% sure that Nan believed a word of it, but even Nan eventually came round and obviously decided it would be better not to look too close because Adam was a hell of an improvement on her previous efforts. He didn't go round trying to shag her mates in public toilets or try and tap her mum or her Nan up for money, fat chance of that working, and he didn't nick cars for a living like Robbie had. To be fair Molly hadn't known that the car was stolen when the old bill had pulled them over so she hadn't been in the shit with the law, but she could have been.

Her mum kept on and on smiling and saying how Adam reminded her so much of Smurf, not his looks, he looked completely different, but how he was such a nice bloke, how good he was with the kids and how they'd have lovely looking kids themselves one day and how her dad liked him and how he'd make a lovely dad and how lucky she was and how kind he was and how he was so lovely and easy to get along with, which he was, he was all of those things and Belinda was absolutely right, but Molly wanted to yell at her that he was not the right bloke.

-OG-

 _ **Bath …. 5 months … and a bit ….. earlier …**_

He hadn't been at his best that day. He'd been edgy and irritable ever since she'd got there, but then she knew him well enough to know that he could be a bit of a moody sod sometimes. She'd known that about him ever since those early days in Afghan, like she'd known that he was bloody good at sulking, although to be fair it had been known for her to get a bit pissy now and then as well. But she also knew that she was getting on his nerves by keep trying to jolly him out of it, it was stupid and it was pointless and would have irritated the fuck out of her as well if the boot had been on the other foot, unlikely as that was. To keep on asking him what was the matter with him was putting herself on a hiding to nowhere when he just kept on saying 'nothing, leave it' and getting more and more arsey every time she opened her mouth and asked, but she couldn't seem to stop, couldn't seem to just keep her mouth shut.

There was something wrong and she knew it, so why the fuck had she kept on pushing it the way she had, maybe if she hadn't, maybe if she'd of done what he said and left it, it wouldn't have blown up in her face the way it had ….

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your reviews, please keep them coming, otherwise I'll think you've all given up – Chapter 4 is the start of Part 2 when other people start to come back into her life. I hope to update AYSAPP as my favourite soldier says, I am on a bit of a roll at the moment so will stick with it while it keeps on bugging me to get out of my head and onto the page ..…**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Part Two**_

 _ **There'll be Time enough for Sadness when you Leave me**_

"It's the Yemen not Benidorm ….. moron, you know some'ing, if you had half a brain you'd be dangerous"

"That's not a very nice thing to say, is it? I'm only trying to help here"

"Well don't …" She thought for a minute "People used to say that to me all the bloody time, 'n it's the fucking desert not the seaside …. and it's not a holiday, there's no pool" She grinned to show that she wasn't seriously pissed a him and put her hand up to indicate what exactly she meant by a slit for the eyes, with Adam you could never be quite sure "It's one of them strict Muslim places, you know, where women cover up from head to toe and just 'ave this little slit where you can see their eyes so if I wore that I'd probably get beheaded or some'ing"

"I can think of some people who'd look better in one of them"

"Better not be talking about me, sunshine"

"Of course I mean you, I reckon it'd suit you"

"Thanks a bunch"

She suddenly desperately wanted to get off the subject of burkas and hijabs and slits for eyes and strict Muslim societies and all the rest of that shit before the waterworks kicked in. Today was difficult enough already without any of that so that she did her best to swallow the deeply unwelcome and painful memories of being stood waiting in a compound in Kabul looking at the worried expression on the face of a concerned Quaseem and then as a stubborn, obstinate little mare from another lifetime hugged a little girl. Still, no point in thinking about all that shit and any of the rest of the things that she wished more than anything she could go back and change, too late now to do it all different. She forced a grin so that Adam wouldn't notice the tears prickling her eyes as he kept on talking.

And it wasn't Adam's fault that he didn't understand what being deployed on a mission involved, you don't get deployed that often when you work in a bloody wine bar on Guildford High Street, but he didn't even know where the Yemen was, even though she'd tried to show him over and over on the map and had done her best to explain, an explanation that seemed to have passed him by completely.

"We need to talk about timing of all this … court stuff … you know, not that I'm paying for any of it, I thought you could do that"

"Did you? Bloody stingy sod, I got bad news for you, Mr Visa 'asn't got enough spare to lend me so I can take care of any of it, mind you, on second thoughts might be worth selling something just to get shot of you"

"What?"

"Not that, not sure anyone would pay enough for _that_ anyhow"

"I wasn't talking about _that,_ and you know you don't mean it"

"Yeah you were, nah I s'pose you're not that bad on the whole, not as useless waste of space husbands go"

She grinned back as his face had broken into a wide and stupid smirk as he'd held up the bikini he'd pulled out of the bottom of the kitbag where she'd been storing her summer stuff and that she'd just emptied by dumping the contents in the middle of the bed. A year since Vegas, which in any other circumstances would have been about eleven months too long for Molly, but what had started out as a mess had worked out much better than she could have ever imagined. Adam was okay, which to be fair she'd known from day one, he was thick as a brick, which she'd also known from day one, but was exceptionally kind and even-tempered, he always said he was far too lazy to bother with losing his temper, and he put up with all her shit, which was a bonus.

Any outsider looking at them would have thought their relationship was weird to say the bloody least and sometimes Molly would agree with that assessment, she'd often thought that they must both be insane and that the whole situation was just asking for someone to get hurt, but it seemed to work for them. They weren't _together_ together, as in _a couple_ , that had never changed since they'd first realised that the stupid wedding was legal but they did have a relationship of sorts. They were fond of each other even though they didn't sleep together, and although she did now stay over there a lot, but, and it would always be the major stumbling block for her, there were no fireworks, no passion, no _**love,**_ not of the sort she'd known, but that also meant that there was no pain.

He stopped smirking and pulled a face, frowning as he watched her sorting stuff ready to pack it away in her kit bag, he couldn't help feeling that the end of this, whatever it was, was all a bit sad.

"You will keep in touch, won't you? Send me texts so I know you're okay and you have to promise me you'll be careful and come home in one piece, you've already got one fucking medal for being a hero, Molls, you don't need another one, do you?"

"Nah, bloody coward, that's me, and it's not a war zone so I'm not gonna get another medal, okay? You just make sure that you behave, don't you dare flog me stuff on Ebay cos if you even think about it, you need to remember I'm a trained killer so I'll track you down and jackpot you, and now can you stop being so bleeding nice to me, Patterson, or you'll make me cry … and then I'll change me mind and won't bloody divorce you after all"

"Shit, no, anything but that, you promised I could have my flat back, I keep dreaming about living with none of your bloody crap all over everywhere"

"Pig" She blinked hard to wipe the memory of someone else having a pop at her for being a bit untidy in his space and then resolutely dragged her thoughts away from the past, a past that still had the power to hurt "Sorry hadn't noticed you was a neat freak, anyway you should count yourself lucky I'm not suing for alimony, I'm the one who's gonna be homeless with nowhere to put me stuff, unless I can leave it here" She deliberately put a wheedling tone in her voice and pulled a 'go on, be nice to me' face.

"No you bloody can't and no you're not, and don't start trying to make me feel bad, it won't work"

"Shit, really? …. Shame …. but you will let me know if there are any ….hitches … or anything won't you? I don't want to get back and find you've screwed it up and I'm still married to a tosspot"

The raw pain had faded so that she now managed to go whole days without _remembering_ and surprisingly it had helped enormously when she'd told Adam all about it on the one year anniversary of that horrible day in Bath. The pair of them had got totally obliterated on some Peach Schnapps that was so bloody old he couldn't even remember when he'd bought it back from some holiday somewhere or other, but they'd made this very lucky discovery of the sticky bottle at the back of a cupboard, and after they'd sniffed at it dubiously to see if it was off, had decided you couldn't really tell unless you tasted it ….. and then that it would be a crime to put it back where it came from.

Lovely, kind Adam had told her that he'd always known there was something, someone, and had gone on to say all the right things, the ones that she'd most wanted to hear. How it was _his_ loss and that she hadn't deserved any of it, which she knew was wrong because she had, and then Adam had asked her to consider whether she thought _he_ was sitting at home crying into his beer, or his bloody Peach Schnapps if he had any, which was pretty bleeding doubtful, or whether she thought that he'd be out there somewhere chatting up some girl, some girl who was young and pretty and trusting just like her and who thought he was wonderful just like she had. She didn't really think he was doing that, it didn't feel like something he would do or maybe it was that she didn't want to think he would, but she'd thought about Adam's words a lot in the days after and had begun to make a real effort to stop measuring her life by counting days, weeks or even the hours which was what she had been doing …...

She knew that he'd fully recovered and that he was back, still an officer and still a fully functioning soldier, something she'd thought about time after time when her fingers had been hovering over his number on her phone. She'd thought about maybe sending him a text to say 'well done' or 'hope you're okay' or something but in the end hadn't, had thought better of it because of the deafening silence from him, so she'd made a deliberate choice not to find out where he was stationed or anything else about his life now.

Her and Adam were about to petition the courts for the divorce, they'd both signed all the papers and got all the bits and bobs ready, but even though they weren't in love or anything like that and never had been, they were very fond of each other so it felt like it was just as well she was going to be a very, very long way away for the next three months while everything got sorted out. It also meant there was absolutely no chance of her running into Charles by accident anywhere, not on the base or anywhere else for that matter because she was tired of keeping her head down in case, and the best bit of all was that she was going to learn to be on her own again. She didn't need some bloke to make her feel good about herself, she'd spent more than enough time on the edge of being a fucking lunatic already and had fucked things up enough to last a bleeding lifetime, no more, never again.

They were off to the Yemen, to al-Mazraq or maybe Obock, no-one seemed to be quite certain which yet, but they were definitely going to one or the other to support the old MSF, the Doctors Without Borders lot, trying their best to make a difference at some shit-hole of a refugee camp, where apparently the Somalis were doing their best to get in while the Yemenis were busting a gut to get out, to get away from their civil war

-OG-

"Oi, oi, wait up Dawsey"

Oh shit, she'd have known that bloody voice anywhere, she should do, once upon a time she'd heard it morning, noon and bloody night, well not all night obviously, but a hell of the lot of time when they weren't in their pits cos he rarely kept his gob shut for very long.

"Keep walking 'n don't look round, I said DON'T, shit, shit, shit what the fuck's 'e doing 'ere?"

Molly hastily scanned the crowded departure hall looking to see if there was anywhere to hide, as well as making sure that there weren't any other unwelcome surprises lurking in amongst the crowds of men and women in combats.

"Daw _SEY, oi_ wait up"

"Who is that Molly?"

Before she could think of an answer that would put a halt to further discussion he'd run across to catch up with them, to sling his arm round her shoulders and give her a loud smacker of a kiss on the cheek, the same way he'd always done, well, he had before the boss had got all arsey with him about it.

"What, you going Mutt and Geoff on me or something? Didn't you hear me shouting for you to wait up?"

"Sorry, thought I heard some'ing but then I thought nah, can't be, just having a bit of an hallucination, you know, bit hot in 'ere 'n I'm not acclimatised, thought it were just me imagining stuff" She couldn't help the grin that had spread itself across her face without her brain giving permission, she had to grin at him the same way that he'd always made her bloody grin even when she really didn't want to, even when, like today, he was the very last person on earth that she wanted to see, well nearly the last anyway "How are you anyhow?"

"I'm lovely, as you can see, and when did you get too good for the likes of me? Knew they should never have given you that fucking medal, Dawsey, said as much at the time, didn't I? But would they listen to me? Not a chance"

"No-one ever listens to you mate, you should know that by now and I've always been too good for the likes of you so nothing's changed …. what you doing here anyway?"

"Same as you by looks of it" He grinned "Seeing as you're not going to introduce me to your mate here, looks like I'm going to have to do it myself, Hello Sweetheart, I'm Fingers and I'm a very old friend of Dawsey here, we go way back, and you are?"

"Sane, that's why she won't be messing with you, mate"

"I'm hurt, nah, cut to the quick is what I am"

Tilly started to giggle as he clapped his hand over his heart and pulled an 'aarrgh I've been stabbed and I'm dying' face and then pretended to stagger around a bit so that even Molly was giggling and that was something Tilly rarely saw. The other girl tended to keep herself very much to herself, not that she was unfriendly or anything, she wasn't, she was always pleasant, it was just that she didn't mess around and exchange that much banter with any of the blokes they saw every day. Tilly had a feeling that she was married, that she had a husband tucked away somewhere, or had been married or something or so she'd heard, but the other girl didn't talk about her private life so she hadn't got a clue who this bloke was or where he fitted in. The worst of that was that she couldn't tell whether she was supposed to laugh with him or not, but then couldn't help herself.

Molly had never mentioned anything to any of them about any of it, not about the lads or what good mates they'd all been in Afghan, or how it had stayed like that even when they'd got back and even after she'd been shifted to her new permanent section, how they'd used to be her sort of family. That was before Smurf of course, and all the rest of it, what had gone down afterwards, which meant that although it was a bloody lifetime ago now it could have been yesterday the last time she'd seen him, the last time she'd listened to him rabbiting on with his particular brand of bullshit. It was obviously a tiny bit awkward for Tilly who was now giggling almost in spite of her better judgement, but then Fingers always had that effect on girls, she'd often thought that it was only her was immune to him, but there had been reasons for that ….

"Hello, I'm Tilly and it's nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you"

"Who from? Not from me you 'aven't"

"Thanks Dawsey, missed you too, it's really lovely to see you as well"

He was obviously only pretending to be offended as he slung his arm back round her shoulders and carried on walking with them towards a big crowd that was gathered in front of the open doors to the tarmac. All of them were in combats and all of them were standing with their kit bags stacked in piles and all making the usual pre-tour hell of a din, chatting and laughing and calling out to each other so that there was that general air of excitement and anticipation that always went along with the start of a mission, no matter how shit they thought it was going to be. It was very, very warm in the hall so despite the doors being kept open by the people standing in front of them, some of the groups had already spilled out onto the tarmac in front of a Hercules transport, making Molly breathe out a big sigh of relief. There was only a minute or two, maybe three at most, for her to survive and then she and Tilly could be safely tucked into the middle of their section, away from anything with the potential to be bloody awkward.

And then he ruined it. He ground to a halt but still held on tightly to her shoulders so that she was forced to stand still as he looked down at her with this serious expression on his face and asked the one question she didn't want to answer. He wanted to know whether the rumours that they'd heard were true. He said he'd had to tell people over and over that that couldn't be right, that she'd have told them, her mates, so what the fuck had she'd been up to, what was it all about? Why had none of them heard a single bloody word from her at all in over a year and why hadn't she ever answered e-mails or texts? He was being kind, looked like he was genuinely concerned and not just nosy, but all she wanted to do was shrug him off and run away or tell him to piss off and leave her alone, she didn't need or want any of this right now. What the hell could she say without having to go into loads of stuff that she didn't want to talk about in front of Tilly, so she just prayed that he wouldn't push it as she tried her best to swamp him with bullshit, so that even to her ears she delivered the most pathetic shitty load of excuses that she'd come out with in a very long time. But it was the best she could do on the spur of the moment as she frantically searched her brain for some way of avoiding telling him anything and at the same time changing the subject.

"Sorry about that, you know how it is, people to see, places to go, things to do 'n that and sometimes there's things you just don't get round to, so, who else is here then?"

"Let me see now, Brains, Dangles, Kingy, oh no you don't know him he came after… Monk, you don't _want_ to know him, he's a bit of a tosser, good lad though …. Oh and Mansfield …"

"Mansfield's here? Mike?" He was one person she would actually love to see, she wouldn't mind the others of course, but Mike was well ….. Mike "Baz? Nude-Nut?"

"Yeah Mike's here but not the others, they've moved on like you have, Lane's here though, Oh no, you wouldn't know her, she's the medic replaced you, not as good as you of course"

"Course not …. Bloody arse creep"

"Alright have it your way, she's a fit bird who's not a crap medic like you were, oh and Eggy he's shoved off as well, but he got himself promoted so they'll probably see through him any day now and then he'll be on his way back, could be here any minute"

"Fuck-muppet"

He stopped laughing long enough to look over her left shoulder and then put his hand in the air in order to point down at her head.

"Boss, Boss, over here Boss, have you seen who's here?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your feedback – please keep letting me know if you're still with me as life gets a little more complicated, if that's possible …..**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Don't Look so Sad I Know it's Over**_

No need for her to turn round to see who it was he was talking to, she could feel eyes on her the way you do when there's someone staring at you, that feeling that makes every instinct you've got scream and tell you to turn round and cop a look, but she didn't because there was only one person called Boss that would know her. She'd known, of course, that he'd be there somewhere the minute Fingers had shown up and told her that the rest of them were there, but that didn't stop her heart from pounding like it was going to jump right out of her chest or her pulse from thundering in her ears as if Status Quo were playing a drum solo inside her head. It was just as bloody well that no bugger was going to come over and take her blood pressure or they'd have had her in a hospital bed never mind on a transport plane, but she couldn't help it.

It didn't matter what she did she had to keep the stupid grin on her face, even if it was an act that might show, and she had to try to look like there was no big deal, but she couldn't stop the panic that was beginning to make her legs shake and her mouth feel like the Gobi Desert. How the fuck was she supposed to be able to just look at him and say 'hello Boss, how are you this lovely fine day?' as if none of it mattered, as if none of it had even happened, as if he didn't matter to her anymore?

More than a year and she wanted to see him so badly when she realised that he was standing somewhere just behind her, only a few feet away, but at the same time she didn't. Course, if she had any bloody sense at all, or even half the brain she'd talked to Adam about, she'd do a bloody runner. She could always make excuses to Tilly later on because the other girl was lovely but wasn't always the sharpest tool in the box, and she could tell her that she'd felt sick or something. All that bloody time she'd spent being a fucking loony tune and trying to get her shit together looked like it was all a waste of time now because it felt like it had happened yesterday.

Typical Dawsey gobshite, she never had known when to shut it and leave well alone, but she'd never meant to light the blue touch paper for him to explode like that. She'd pushed him once too often, had kept on and on at him trying to make him explain why he was spoiling for a fight with her, had got no idea what it was bugging him making him all moody and brooding about the place the way he was, so that she wasn't prepared when he'd turned himself into Bossman and accused her like that, when he'd said that she'd lied to him and that he didn't think that he could live with it and had then asked her how he was supposed to ever trust her again. He hadn't wanted to let her explain, in fact he wouldn't listen to anything that she had to say, not properly, not that she knew what to say exactly because everything he'd said was true, she had done all that. It was just that she hadn't meant to put anyone in danger or anything, and definitely hadn't meant to hurt him in any way, she'd hidden it from him because she knew how he would react. She hadn't told him because she hadn't wanted to hear him tell her not to do it, so he was right, she might not have said the words exactly or told him straight out or even told him once she'd done it, in his eyes that meant she'd lied.

He'd stood there with his legs wide apart and arms folded across his chest with his hands tucked into his armpits, that arrogant way he had of standing with that _look_ on his face, that 'I'm in charge and don't you forget it' stern expression that she'd always hated. He was hard and cold and distant and nothing like the Charles that she thought she knew, the one that smirked at her and laughed and joked and teased her, the one that cuddled her when she got a bit upset and teary about some sad animal thing on tele, the one who'd told her that he loved her, the one that she'd made love to, that had made love to her as if they were the only two people in the whole world that mattered. That Charles seemed to have gone, he seemed to have left the bloody building. She'd royally fucked it all up. What was it he used to say about her? That she didn't think things through before she did them, and he was absolutely bloody right, she hadn't stopped and thought for a single solitary moment about anything but her tunnel vision of needing to check it out for herself that she hadn't fucked up that little girl's life.

And now, more than a year on she was going to have to face him again. She hadn't seen him or heard anything from him since he'd said all that stuff and time had made her see that there had been more going on with him that evening than her not telling him about Kabul and that, although she still didn't know what it was. But that evening she hadn't waited to listen to any more of it, she'd just got all angry and defensive and called him names before slamming the door on her way out, so that she hadn't got a scoobie now how to _be_ around him.

"Nice to see you Dawes"

"Sir"

He'd carefully kept his gaze on some point in the distance over the top of her head so that he didn't meet her eyes but even so his eyes had widened imperceptibly when she'd responded and he'd swallowed hard, almost gulped, when she'd stood to attention in front of him and lifted her chin up before she'd said anything. It was unlikely that anyone else would have noticed it, but she did. Instinctively, or maybe because she'd spent so many hours studying that face and the way it reacted to things, usually in bed, that she knew that her response had hurt him for some reason. Although what the fuck he expected her to do she didn't know, as she stifled the unfortunate urge that she had to start giggling like she used to in days gone by when she felt nervous, even though there was nothing even remotely funny about any of it. Giggling wouldn't help one little bit, not with anything.

He looked just the same, tall, so that she got that crick in her neck from looking up at his face while he kept his chin up and didn't help by looking down at her, and dark and rangy and very fit with not a bit of fat on him anywhere, in fact he looked to her as though he'd lost quite a lot of weight, although that could have been that she was comparing him to Adam, and his hair was cut pre-tour short, not a curl in sight. Despite everything he still made her heart flip over.

"Anyway, better crack on, good to see you again"

He didn't wait for her to say anything, just came out with that trite load of bollocks as he painted a false smile across his face and directed it somewhere over the top of her head, then turned on his heel and walked away, he didn't even look back as she stood and watched him get swallowed up by the crowd. She wanted to shout at his disappearing backside 'Is that it? Is that all you've got to say? Ask me how I am, ask me where I'm going, tell me where you're going, you didn't even look at me so don't just walk off like that' but she knew, that even though he'd just done precisely that or maybe because that was what he'd done, that he was no more indifferent to her than she was to him.

"Boss was in a bit of a hurry"

Fingers raised an eyebrow and watched Charles as he hurried away and then gave a little mental shrug and decided to give up on his mission to chat Tilly up, something which had got his undivided attention while Molls and the Boss had been having a bit of a chat, catching up or it would appear …. not. He looked at her face and began to detect an atmosphere. He'd always thought that the Boss had a very soft spot for their tiny medic, and that it was mutual, but was suspicious now that there might have been some sort of falling out at some point because the last he'd heard the Boss was singing her praises to anyone who'd listen after she'd saved his life in Afghan. Didn't look that way now.

"Yeah, said he had to crack on, you'd better go 'n all, else he'll 'ave you up on a charge"

"Nah, not me, lurves me, doesn't he? So, now, tell me, where are you two going for your holiday in the sun?"

"Obock"

"Where the fuck's that?"

"The Yemen"

Molly didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed, then decided on the whole that it was a relief that she'd had to tell him where it was, she'd thought for a moment that Lady Luck had posted them to the same place, but if that had been the case he would have known where it was.

"You?"

"Shan'a"

"Where the fuck's that?" She giggled as she repeated his words.

"The Yemen ….. top destination for sunshine breaks this year, innit? It's the capital I think, sort of, well it used to be before the Saudis redesigned by dropping a few well-aimed bombs her and there"

"Lovely, nice and safe then? Just make bloody sure you keep your 'elmet on and keep yourself ducked down behind some'ing if they start with that shit"

"Don't think that's going to help much if some inconsiderate bugger starts dropping bombs on me do you?"

She wanted to run off and find him and beg him to keep himself safe. Just because they were well over and done with, it didn't mean that she could stop worrying about him getting hurt or worse.

-OG-

Three hours into the seven and a half hour incredibly noisy and deeply uncomfortable flight and she had her ears firmly plugged in as she listened to her audiobook of Poldark and did her best to concentrate on the story that seemed to her to be very different to the one that she'd seen on tele, although she still thought Ross was a bit of a shite so that all her sympathies were with Demelza. She had tried to have a bit of a kip to kill time but hadn't been able to drop off, so in the end had given up and started trying to concentrate on her book again. It was difficult, not because it wasn't good or because she wasn't enjoying it, it was and she was, but she kept on losing the thread because he was sitting on the opposite side of the plane, albeit right up at the top end and well away from her, but he was still in her line of vision so that her eyes kept on being drawn to look at him as if he was a magnet or something, or looking at the side of his face as he resolutely stared straight ahead or down at the floor between his legs. The first time that she'd looked over to where he was he'd been looking at her so that their eyes had met before they'd both hastily looked the other way, and then she'd plugged herself in so that she could concentrate on not looking at him.

The lads were all up the other end where he was as well otherwise she'd have had them to chat to, as it was she was surrounded by people she saw every working day of her life and was far too restless and unsettled to want to exchange banalities with any of them. The lads had been as pleased to see her as she had been to see them, there had been hugs and kisses all round, so that she'd had a quick trip down memory lane of just how fond of them she was. They'd introduced her with a load of insults to all the new members of the section, including Georgia Lane, who as Fingers had said, was very good looking so that Molly felt a piercing dart of jealousy that this Georgie was with them, day in and day out and was part of the section, was with him, and she wasn't.

She'd laughed and joked around with them and had done her best to keep a lid tight shut on her jealousy as they'd carried on with insulting her the way they always had and she'd laughed like a drain and high-fived the other girl when Dangles had relayed Lane's way of dealing with Monk's stupid remarks. She immediately made a mental note to store it up and share it with her colleagues for use as and when needed. Everything changed when Captain Stern Face showed up and glared at her, well not at her as such he still hadn't looked directly at her, but in her direction so that she'd shifted her arse to stand and wait with her own lot and had done her best to pretend she hadn't noticed and that she was immune anyway, to him and to the _looks_ he gave in her direction…

-OG-

He'd seen her the instant he'd arrived in that departure hall and just for a second the shock of it had made him stand still until that familiar sinking feeling in his stomach had made him seriously consider turning round and walking in the opposite direction, but he hadn't, he'd been too busy looking at her, drinking her in and then it was too bloody late because Fingers had caught sight of him and called out. She'd looked just the same as he'd remembered, well why he should have imagined that she would look any different he had no idea, but until he'd seen her again he'd forgotten just what it had felt like when he had been so happy, when he'd first known that the girl that he loved so much felt exactly the same way about him. When he'd known that despite the bloody age gap and all the rest of the shit, the horror of Smurf's death and the enforced separations of her second tour, which had been his own crap idea, and then his rehab at Headley, they were going to work. Just how wrong did he turn out to be?

And now here he was leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs and looking down at the floor of a transport plane as the memory of her standing in the kitchen of his parent's house in Bath came back to haunt him. She'd had that beautiful frown of concentration of hers on her face as she'd jiggled a pan about on the hob, stir frying something or other as he'd stood behind her and loudly ogled her arse before he'd put his arms out and pulled her back against him. She'd shrieked that the bloody dinner was going to be burnt to buggery if he didn't pack it in so that he'd growled against her neck to just leave it, and had then turned her round with his hands on her arse until she was pressed up against him with her arms wound around his neck and her fingers twined in the curls, as she pulled his head down towards her. He remembered reaching over her shoulder and turning the bloody cooker off before going back to kissing round her neck, and then saying that they'd get a take away, a memory that was torturing him now as they both sat on some fucking flight from hell or was it the flight to hell, and he had no choice but to spend the next seven hours or so not looking in her direction.

God, seeing her like that out of the blue after more than a year when he'd just about convinced himself that it was all for the best and that the car crash that had been his life was now back to being under control, it had all gone to shit again in an instant. He hadn't looked at her face when he'd gone over and spoken to her, he wasn't sure whether she'd still be able to read him as easily as she always used to so that she'd know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but he'd then felt this massive stab of pain, of loss, when she'd stood to attention like that and had given him that _'Sir'_ in that manner as though he was some random Rupert and she was no-one special, just some squaddie, had meant that in the space of a couple of hours he was firmly back to square one.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you everyone for your support and feedback, please keep it coming because it is that that keeps me going. Now, much as I longed to just have them fall on each other's necks with glad cries I don't think it's going to happen quite that easily because there just might possibly be one or two obstacles ….**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Let's just be Glad we had some Time to Spend Together**_

"Right then gentlemen listen up, oh sorry … and ladies" Charles gave a small apologetic smile and nodded his head in acknowledgement towards the medics at the rear of the plane "Just before we land at Sana'a, full protective gear please, including helmets, and we need to get a bit of shift on once we're down, the pilot says he doesn't want to hang about so anyone keeping him waiting …" He paused "You'll find yourself having to jump off or you'll be hanging out of the back, so you'll find it best to crack on guys"

The treacly warmth of humour in his voice was giving Molly a huge shiver of deja vue as she gazed towards the front of the plane where he was standing in the aisle, legs wide apart in order to balance against the sway and bump of the flight while he briefed them. She was fighting with every bit of her resolve not to focus on his face even though she, like everyone else, had to look at him as he was speaking but she focussed instead on the spot where there was a scar on his midriff, it would have been obvious if she'd made a point of not looking at him at all, even if he was still avoiding any sort of eye contact with her.

His gaze had swept over them, skidding past her, before he'd settled on a point somewhere right at the back as he went over what to expect, as much as he knew anyway which didn't seem to be an awful lot. Things apparently changed almost hourly in the carnage that was the Yemen, but as far as he _did_ know there'd been a lot of heavy air raids by the Saudis who were still very active in the area.

"Did I hear Fingers say that he used to be your boss?"

Tilly stage whispered in her ear as Charles finished what he had to say and asked if anyone had questions, before accepting the resulting deafening silence as a sign that everyone was happy as fuck, or at least were pretending to be, before nodding decisively and sitting down. And he'd managed to do it all without looking in her direction once.

"Who, Fingers?"

"No, not Fingers, him" She pointed surreptitiously to where Charles was at the front of the plane "Good looking, isn't he? I wouldn't mind working under him, actually I wouldn't mind doing anything under him, he'd only have to ask once, or maybe I should offer, what do you think?"

"Used to be, me Boss I mean, and I wish you luck with the rest mate"

There was a bit of her that had immediately recalled Adam's words about how he could have moved onto some other girl by now, some girl who'd think he was wonderful just like she had, but the last thing she could bear to even think about was for Tilly to get all up close and personal with him …

"Is he nice as he looks?"

"Nah, he's not nice at all, Tills, he's a bloody Rupert and bloody Ruperts are never nice"

Molly was smarting that he hadn't looked at her, not even a glance as far as she could see, not once. Alright it was awkward, it was even perhaps a bit difficult for him and she could understand that because it was bleeding well difficult for her as well not to mention awkward but he had no reason to be ignoring her the way he was, none of what had happened between them was her fault. Okay, well maybe it was a little bit, but it was much more his fault than hers so why was he bloody behaving like he was the one who'd got hurt?

All the talking in the world from some good looking young officer with a posh voice hadn't prepared Tilly in the slightest for the sight that greeted her as she stood on the ramp and looked around. She stood so still and had such a horrified expression on her face that Molly patted her arm to bring her back to planet earth before giving her a hard shove and reminding her in a loud whisper that she had to get her bloody arse into gear and _move,_ and then keep on moving for fuck sake because she was causing a pile up behind her, and if she weren't bleeding careful the Sergeant was going to come down on her like a ton of shit. Not even the most determined comedian could find anything remotely funny about Sana'a, there was simply nothing left except part of one bit of the terminal building and a lot of bomb craters and piles of rubble.

"I thought the Saudis were supposed to be on our side"

"Yeah they are, but it don't always seem like that, mind you I don't think they're after us exactly" Molly laughed "Actually not sure who it is they are after, but there's not much left to bomb 'ere is there so it'd be a waste of money, listen Tills, we'll be out of 'ere any minute" She patted Tilly's arm again "Hope they don't forget we're 'ere waiting for them cos I'm quite keen to get the fuck out of here 'n all"

Even as she nudged the other girl in a vain attempt to get an anxious looking Tilly to smile she knew she that didn't feel quite the same way as the other girl. Tilly kept shooting glances up at the sky because she was bloody certain she could hear planes so was expecting the bombers to arrive any second and if she was being honest she would have liked nothing better than to ask the pilot to let her get back on the plane so that she could get the hell out of there and go home where it was nice and safe.

Molly was torn between wanting to leave so that she could get out of somewhere that gave her the willies, and wanting to stay where the lads were. That total crap that she'd spouted at Adam about how she was sure that there wasn't anything dangerous here had come back to bite her on the bum, if this wasn't a war zone then she sure as fuck would hate to see somewhere that was. Just showed how much she knew, but it might be different at Obock, of course, it was a good two hundred miles away for starters and for all she knew it could be …. nice …. well no, not nice exactly, that was bloody unlikely, but it might be … a FOB of sorts … secure …. have running water, showers and buildings in one bit, even tents would be …okay… but she couldn't help the horrible suspicion that it was far more likely to turn out to be a mirror image of this rubble pit than anything else.

The lads were stacking up boxes of supplies next to kit bags and Bergen's as the pilot got his wish and shoved off leaving them all standing in a huddle with their heads turned away from the cloud of dust and debris that was kicked up by his departure as it enveloped them. They were left spluttering and coughing and rubbing their eyes as they spat the muck out and yelled at him, calling him a lot of less than flattering names which of course was a total waste of energy bearing in mind that he couldn't hear them, but which made them feel better.

"I'm so not booking this again next year Boss"

"Shit, didn't anyone check this out on TripAdvisor?"

The loud comments came from a couple of those that had been in Afghan and produced the expected gale of laughter from the rest, including Molly, all of whom remembered only too well the last time they'd heard that, being in a ditch and shit scared before they'd realised it was a thunderstorm causing the bloody noise. Charles had been on his phone when the pilot had taken off so he'd had to hunch over and move away with one finger stuck in his ear as he struggled to hear over the racket of a Hercules, but had now moved back with a grin on his face which showed that he also remembered as he came and stood next to her, so near that she could smell the familiar smell that was him and so close that she could easily have slipped her fingers into his without moving them more than a fraction of an inch. He was almost, but not quite, touching her as she did her level best to ignore the inconvenient fact that Lane was standing on the other side of him, not quite as close to him as she was but still ….. too close for her liking.

"You okay?"

He'd inclined his head towards her slightly so that his voice was quiet and low so that she wasn't sure for a second if he was actually speaking to her until he nudged his knuckles against hers lightly, touching in her in a way that she knew hadn't been an accident, that it was deliberate in order to encourage her to answer hi, but her breath hitched in her throat. When she finally did manage to get her voice to work she couldn't think what to say, of course she wasn't okay, but there was so much she wanted to tell him that she couldn't think of how to say any of it, or even if he'd want to hear it.

"Yeah, think so, you?"

He said something so quietly that she didn't catch what it was and couldn't ask him to repeat as he moved away when Sergeant Morris started clapping and yelling for them to listen up and give her their undivided attention, which the other seven did, but Molly was far too busy trying to work out what he'd said to pay that much attention. The others were all shooting anxious glances skywards as they stood waiting in their huddle, Tilly's nervousness had proved extremely contagious.

"Right, our carriages await, so stop pissing about and let's get the fuck out of here"

Sgt Morris waved her hand vaguely towards two very battered and filthy Land Rovers which had just announced their arrival with a loud screech of tyres before pausing with their engines running and revving hard every so often to show that they had no intention of hanging about for very long. Just for a second Molly wished that they could go on a nice helicopter ride, but then maybe not if there were some buggers out there looking to shoot things down which looked more than a bit likely from where she was standing.

There were grins all round from the other medics as they hoisted their kit and set off at a fast jog across the runway, they were making no secret of the fact that they were bloody glad to be going so didn't need telling twice to watch where they put their feet, and to keep away from the craters as the Sergeant pasted an evil grin on her face and promised that if anyone broke a leg or even twisted an ankle she'd have them up on a charge. She added with a malevolent smirk that if anyone fell down one of the holes that some wanker had half-filled in with rubble she wasn't going to come back for them or wait, she was going to leave them there ..…

Molly could see him out of the corner of her eye, an unmistakeable figure standing motionless off to one side with his hands on his hips as he watched them getting ready to leave and although he'd been wrong when he'd once suggested that she had a death wish, she didn't want to leave, not like the others who couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. She didn't actually want to stay either, not exactly, because it was a total shit-hole and eerily quiet, as if it was really dangerous, and she was more than a bit scared. She'd felt exactly the same way once before when she'd been walking slowly towards a sheet lying in the middle of a road with a body under it and had been waiting for some fucker to detonate it and blow him to bits.

"Come on Dawes, fuck sake get a bloody move on will you, we're waiting to get going and you're going to get us all fucking jackpotted dawdling along like that"

"Sorry Sarge, just coming"

She grabbed hold of the hand that someone was waving about to help her hoick herself up into the back of the Land Rover and then cursed loudly that all military transport was built for giant blokes with extra-long legs and not for ordinary sized people like her, so that Tilly, who was a good six inches taller at least, crowed with a deeply smug expression that she'd never had a problem which made Molly grin and give her the universal one finger salute. The thought of getting out of there had obviously restored the other girl to her usual happy self, but it filled Molly with a deep sense of reluctance, at that moment she would have given anything to swap places with Lane.

Their driver was an evil looking bugger with a lot of facial hair and a face filled with about as much humour as a slab of concrete and had yet to say a single word to any of them, but set off with a showing-off type ramming of his foot on the accelerator so there was another huge squeal of tyres, without a single warning to hold on or anything. He didn't react at all to the torrent of abuse that was directed at him from those in the back seat as they fell on top of one another and had to hang onto the sides to stop themselves being thrown out completely, but the speed of the departure had made one person with extra-long legs disappear from her line of vision in a matter of seconds, but not before she'd lifted one hand slightly to give him a sketchy wave goodbye. She didn't know if he could still see her but hoped that he could even if he was now a vanishing dot in the distance. She wished more than anything that she knew what it was he'd said, even her wishful thinking at its best was having a hard job believing that he might have said what she most wanted to hear, but she wished that she'd told him to take care, had shown him that it mattered to her, but it was far too late for any of that now ….…

-OG-

"Good to see our Dawesy again wasn't it Boss? Felt quite like old times, only hope she'll be alright with Lewis Hamilton, looked a bit dodgy him, didn't he?"

"Indeed, but I'm sure she'll be fine Fingers, they'll be fine"

"I'm just saying …. you know, just hope he's passed his bloody test …. be a shame if …. you know, something happened"

"Fingers….."

"Yes, Boss?"

"Shut up"

"Yes Boss"

Fingers was smirking all over his face but Charles had hastily wiped the smile from his when he'd turned to look at the section's resident gossip and chief piss taker who seemed to have appeared out of thin air to stand in the space next to him. He knew full well that Fingers was on one of his notorious fishing expeditions and wondered if it'd been prompted by him seeing their little exchange meaning that he was now busy adding two and two and making at least a hundred. Fingers didn't miss much as a general rule and Charles knew that he'd allowed a very wide and probably very ill-considered smile to spread across his face when he'd been watching her, he was sure as he could be that she hadn't heard him say that he missed her but then she'd given him that little wave…

-OG-

There was nothing for them to hang onto as their driver continued his 'bat out hell' progress by swerving violently from side to side past huge craters on the way to the town so that it felt as if they were on some sort of switchback theme park ride, which had always made Molly go green, and they hadn't even got a safety bar to hold onto. She just prayed that he was going to calm down and slow down soon and start driving a little less like he had the coppers after him otherwise she'd be hurling her guts long before they got anywhere near Obock.

All conversation had dried up completely by the time they reached the centre of Sana'a, what was left of it, not only were they all scared shitless at the way Mr Happy was driving, but there was this air of desolation about the place. The odd one or two people who were about were picking their way through the rubble and didn't bother to look up at the UN flags, in fact didn't bother to look up at them at all, so that once again she was flooded with anxiety for the lads, worried about how safe they were going to be wherever it was they were going to stay in this benighted hole, if there was anywhere left in one piece to stay …..

An incoming text alert had her scrambling for her phone with this happy grin of anticipation plastered across her face, only for a massive surge of disappointment to hit when she saw the name that popped up on the screen, _Adam. S_ hit, she'd thought …. well, she'd been sure who it was ….. so sure that she'd had to stop for a second and think who Adam was exactly and he definitely didn't deserve that.

Twenty four hours, that was all it had taken, less than that really for her to forget everything she'd been so determined about before Brize, beforehe'd waltzed back into her life and turned it bloody upside down again. She still didn't know what it was he'd said to her, but told herself that it didn't really matter what it was, it was time for her to stop wondering and to get back to sticking with her plan to stop being a soft fool and to remind herself that she didn't need a bloke in her life to make things right. She was going to get on and live without, and was going to be fucking brilliant… and living without meant living without the one who hadn't had the bloody decency to be the one who'd just sent her a text.

 _-_ OG-

 _ **A/N: It's taken me a while because I have been running a sanatorium (warning, severe man flu alert) which has required the soothing of a fevered brow and the regular supply of tissues, cups of tea and sympathy (as well as keeping the urge to yell "oh for fuck sake what now?" under control). Nursing is not, as my hero keeps telling me, my vocation in life, I am far too impatient. Back to the Yemen, I know that some people are impatient for them to kiss and make up, but I have resisted the urge to wave my magic wand as there is a lot of baggage that needs to be sorted ….. Thank you for all your lovely words of encouragement, they keep me going, and I hope that you are still with me, and them, for the ride.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**I'll be here if you ever Find you Need Me**_

According to Tilly who'd managed to establish some sort of communication with the fucker who was holding the steering wheel they were almost there, at Obock, not that Molly believed it, to her it felt like an endless punishment for some sin or other, maybe in a former life. Spending hours and hours in the back of a totally knackered Land Rover with non-existent suspension was worse than being on permanent latrine clean especially when it was being driven by a lunatic who loved his speed so much that he turned corners on two wheels and didn't bother to slow down. And then he did the exact same thing when there wasn't an actual corner but when he just felt like doing it to avoid something on the road, a pebble, a little pothole, a shadow, who knew but he didn't speak enough English to understand the universal shout of 'slow the fuck down, you fuckin' moron'. He was either a joy rider who spent his weekends being chased by the coppers or was so totally convinced they were about to be ambushed that he was bloody determined to practise his evasion techniques, even when they were on a long straight and completely deserted stretch of the road.

One bonus of being scared shitless was that at least it gave her something else to worry about instead of her belief that everything she'd ever eaten in her entire life was about to make a return visit in glorious technicolour, so that even sips of water felt like she was tempting fate. But drinking water to try and keep the contents of her stomach in her stomach meant that she was forced to join the others on the frequent 'pee' stops, crouching down behind the back of a Land Rover which was belching out clouds of noxious black exhaust as the fuckwit revved the engine impatiently made it feel all the more likely that she was going to start heaving at any second.

She had tried hard to block the torture by having a snooze, but then hadn't been able to stop the world swinging round and round whenever she closed her eyes which, if such a thing was possible, made her feel even worse and then she found her favourite getting off to sleep thing had deserted her as well so that not even the one where she was lying in bed in Bath all safe and warm and cuddled up could wave its magic wand and help her escape the reality of being driven by some total fuck muppet.

Making plans for when she got home helped for a bit to take her mind off her imminent death at the hands of this insane knob because she was going to need a good long look at how she was going to sort the rest of her new man-free independent life. Going back to living in barracks would be the pits, total shit, and was something she really didn't want to do at any price, but reality meant she might have no bloody choice in the matter in the short-term. She'd lived in barracks for almost all of the five years since she'd joined, except for when she'd been deployed or when she'd stayed with … people… but bloody hated it now. It hadn't been so bad when she was eighteen, in fact it had been fun to live away from parents and other bossy people and to live with loads of singles that were always up for a party but it wasn't like having a home. It was full of noise and banging doors and people yelling and coming back pissed so that they banged on other people's doors and didn't give a shit if they were trying to sleep or watch tele or just wanted to be quiet, so it wasn't like having somewhere proper to live. Maybe it was that she'd grown out of it, but she wanted more, so that just for a minute she wondered whether it'd be okay for her to ask Adam if she could stop on at his, and then dismissed that as a crap idea. That really would be using him and abusing his good nature, especially as she knew that if she asked he would more than likely say yes, and that would be a really shit thing to do to him when he was likely planning a shag fest for when she moved herself and her stuff out of his space completely.

So, she had to come up with something that she could sort as soon as she got back, maybe find a bedsitter somewhere that she could afford, or even find someone to do a flat share with, she was pretty sure she couldn't afford anywhere half-decent on her own, but still there was no harm in looking. And then there was Christmas, three months out here in the arse end of nowhere and then time to go home to ….. well, Christmas. Fuck.

It wasn't that she didn't like Christmas, she did, sort of, or that she didn't want to see the family for Christmas, it was just that ….. she didn't want to see the family for Christmas. The thought of explaining to them how she'd fucked it all up with the greatest thing on two legs since his namesake, the family's assessment of Adam, made her shudder, they were not going to be delirious that she and the bloke who'd rescued her from the shelf were no more. They'd had her on there ever since she'd turned twenty two and hadn't snared some poor bugger, which in the Dawes family meant she was retarded and had somehow missed the boat completely and now that she'd managed to screw things up again they'd be convinced she was destined to live on that shelf with a bunch of cats for the rest of her life…..

Last year Christmas had been alright, she'd had the perfect excuse not to drag him home with her because she'd been rostered for duty and Adam had gone off home to see his mum and dad, and then two years back she'd lied about where she was going to be, or rather lied about who she was with. She'd spent Christmas in the house in Bath that looked more like some stately home and where his mother lit candles that made the place smell of money. Looking back now, she hadn't really enjoyed that either. They were really nice his mum and dad, had welcomed her and everything, and he'd been lovely, but she'd been anxious the whole bloody time that she was doing the right thing, saying the right things and didn't swear and that her accent wasn't making them cringe, that she was wearing the right clothes and using the right knife and bleeding fork and that she didn't drink too much and get loud and, god forbid, leary. She hadn't told him about how she felt, she'd just kept on telling lies and saying that she was having a lovely time and that everything was wonderful, because saying anything else would have seemed …. wrong … a bit awkward … and anyway it was important to him that she was happy to be there and he was doing his best to be lovely to her, it was only now when she looked back that she could see … well …..

And then Mr Happy stopped the Land Rover and gestured rudely with his head indicating with a nod that they should open the doors and bugger off, so that it seemed as if they were there. Not that they could see anything or tell with any degree of certainty where they were exactly, the almost impenetrable sand storm that was blowing made visibility down to a few feet so that no-one could see even a hand in front of their face, or see any of the refugee camp that was supposed to be there somewhere. Molly for one no longer cared if the driver had dumped them in the middle of fucking nowhere, she was just happy to get out. 242 miles of purgatory was finally over, so she didn't need telling twice to crack on, she had never actually been travel sick before in her life, had only once felt tom and dick like that and that was when she'd been on the rides at Alton Towers and she certainly didn't want to do it again in a hurry.

Once they'd trudged their weary way through drifts of sand to get over the ridge and begin the long walk down the hill to the camp, several of Molly's fellow medics were beginning to look a bit doubtful despite the relief of finally getting there, but she was still miles away thinking about Bath and how different it might have been if she'd known how quickly it was all going to go to shit like that. She had to stop and make an effort not to think about things she couldn't do anything to change otherwise she might start crying and she'd done enough of that, anyhow she had to pull herself together and get back to the here and now, to this place that looked a total shit-hole. Tilly had patted her arm and was obviously concerned about how quiet she was and had asked if she was still feeling sick and did she want help to carry her kit, a lovely offer seeing as how she had a ton of her own to carry and one that Molly turned down with a grin as she insisted that she was good to go and felt fine now that they were out of the bleeding back seat of that Land Rover, which was almost true.

They were effectively being sand-blasted as they walked, it was scouring and stinging the skin on their faces which added significantly to the misery of still feeling a bit like she'd eaten a dodgy prawn sarnie and had a pounding headache that was far worse than the worst hangover she'd ever suffered in her life. All she could think of was getting out of the wind, having a lovely cuppa and then a little lie down, when hopefully the world would stop shifting itself about long enough for her to be able to close her eyes and have a kip. What a lovely way to introduce herself as a fully functioning soldier with ambitions to be brilliant.

The Al-Markazi refugee camp looked to be a bit of a haphazard arrangement on both sides of the road, one side a lot smaller than the other and consisting of a bunch of tents, small ones, not a lot bigger than ridge tents and a few larger round ones just a bit smaller than circus big top type things and the other side of the road the camp was a hell of a lot bigger and organised into neat rows of proper tents and some shed-like buildings, a bit like an army camp. But all of them had one thing in common, they all had piles of sand up against one side courtesy of the strong prevailing wind being full of the bloody stuff. The little camp was a sort of dreary drab olive green looking place but the other one with the white tents had a tattered UNHCR flag flapping about and making a slapping noise in the strong wind over where this group of young looking blokes were sitting on the ground hunched over in a huddle. None of them reacted to the new arrivals, no-one smiled at the group of girls wearing combats or smiled back when the medics smiled at them, no-one spoke to them at all as they walked past, no-one even looked, they were just sitting there, not doing anything tangible and not having any sort of conversation, just staring at the ground while they waited patiently for something, their backs turned towards the prevailing wind so that they too were covered in a fine layer of sand. It was one of the most depressing sights that Molly had ever seen.

Two hours later and a bit of a smile had returned to her face, in fact she was having difficulty in not bouncing around like Tigger complete with some nut-bar smirk plastered across her gob. They'd had their initial briefing from Sergeant Morris about the camp and who was who and what was what, about how there were about 3,000 Yemenis in the big camp because this was actually Djibouti and not Yemen so all those poor buggers who were trying to escape the civil war and who'd paid the people smugglers ended up here and at the same time there were all these Ethiopians trying to go the other way. There was no electricity in the camp, and not enough food, unless they could bribe the so-called officials they had to go into the town and try their luck, and she'd been wrong again in what she'd told Adam, it was the seaside, sort of, well it wasn't far from the port anyhow.

Sergeant Morris was the queen of the understatement when she said it wasn't going to be an easy ride but they'd all sat and looked at each and tried to look as though they weren't at all bothered about the challenges of the next three months in this totally shite place. Molly did her best to make sense of it at the same time as resisting an almost overpowering temptation to put her head down on the back of the chair in front and nod off, she was totally knackered but at least the nausea had gone. A cup of tea later, well actually two very large mugs of piping hot wonderful tea later and a couple of slices of hot toast that some lovely life-saving Good Samaritan had made for them, and she was a new woman.

A shower, even if it was the usual FOB type tepid dribble it was still better than nothing as it washed off the sour smell she could feel clinging to her from having been all sweaty and sickly for hours and hours on end, had gone a long way towards helping her recover but best of all was after they'd gone to their quarters and Sergeant Morris had casually said something that had made Molly want to grab her and kiss her on both cheeks because the NCO was now her new most favourite person.

Apparently she'd had comms with Sana'a and he'd asked, had said that the lads wanted him to make sure all was okay because they hadn't fancied the look of Ayrton Senna one little bit, they'd been worried whether or not he'd even had driving lessons let alone passed a test. Molly had a feeling that something about that didn't feel quite right, and that actually it felt more like it was him that was the one who was worried, but the Sergeant had gone on to say that she'd told him all about their journey with their fucking awful driver and how they had got there in one piece, just, because he'd sounded very concerned apparently, and had said that 2 section would want to know if she was okay. Sgt Morris who obviously liked him, a lot, a bit too much, then said how it went to show what a good officer he was to care about them like that, but Molly knew that she would never, not in a million years, have issued a bulletin on someone like her any more than a Captain would normally have asked for one, so that she wondered what the hell the Sgt had made of it.

A text message full of sympathetic concern would have been nice, very nice, but would maybe be asking a lot, or might even be impossible, she had no idea about phones and signals and the like, but it was nice to think it wasn't a case of being out of sight meaning being out of mind …. And she would still dearly love to know what it was he'd said before they'd left, not that it was going to make any difference in the long run of course, she'd made her decision, she was giving up on men and was going to stick with it.

-OG-

Three months of struggling against the incredibly dry heat, which some of the people who'd been there longer said was nothing like as bad as it had been in the summer when it was 50 degrees or even more which didn't bear thinking about, and the ever present boiling hot wind that was like some giant hair dryer blowing sodding sand into everything all the time, just sometimes worse than others. Their mouths, their eyes, their hair, their clothes, even their knickers and bras so that they were permanently gritty, as well everything they ate and even their cups of tea, everything, so that despite how sorry they were for the poor buggers stuck living there, they were all bloody grateful it was only a three month posting. There wasn't anything decent for them to eat, still, rations were better than what most of the people got to eat on a day to day basis, the food was horrible, what there was of it, not even enough for the children which meant a lot of them were sick and mostly suffering from malnutrition. But despite the lack of food the camp was over-run with rats which scared them all shitless, far more than the thought of being attacked by anyone human, so that it was nothing unusual to hear someone scream about them being there, and they were fighting against a continuous tide of people who were running from the fighting between the Houtis, who were the rebels, and the Saudis. The poor buggers arrived at the camp with nothing, believing that at least their family would be safe and wouldn't starve, only to find that there was nothing there for them either so they had to live with nothing, and there was huge tensions between the Yemenis and the Somalis and Ethiopian migrants so that she almost stopped worrying about what was happening in Sana'a … almost.

"Hey, you really are minging, you know that don't you? You. Bloody. Stink"

Molly looked down at the baby nestling in the crook of her arm who did not understand a word she was crooning at her. Like all the children the little girl was tiny and very skinny for her age, whatever that was, and Molly had no idea except the she was a few months old, but she was staring up out of very solemn and very beautiful big brown eyes, before her face broke into a gummy grin so that Molly kissed her on her little nose ignoring the way that she smelled. Like all Yemeni children she was beautiful with her dark hair and eyes but a nasty dose of some stomach bug had meant her needing treatment for a few days so she was very pale. Stomach bugs were rife in the rat-hole of the camp so that Molly knew that even if Lady Luck had been on her side this time and she'd recovered well, she'd be back again ….. and again …. and again after they'd gone home in a couple of days. The poor little sod had no resistance to anything so that Molly just hoped luck wouldn't run out for her completely before her mum and dad found somewhere safe for her to live.

"I wish I could take you home with me, soon get you sorted, wouldn't we? A decent meal and some clean clothes then you'd smell a hell of a lot better 'n all wouldn't you?"

"Christ are you at it again? Smurf was right when he said you'd always want to take everyone home with you wasn't he?"

"Fuck"

"That's fuck _Sir_ if you don't mind"

"Sorry, fuck _Sir_ ….. you made me jump, what you doin' 'ere?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: The intensive care unit that was my house has now shut its doors, it closed abruptly when the patient declared himself fit to go back to work on Tuesday morning, well not fit exactly but determined to be a brave little soldier/martyr because the wheels of industry would grind to a halt without him at the helm – my sympathy, such as it was, vanished in a heartbeat. Then our internet has been down most of the day today so am rushing to post before the so and so's at Virgin start playing silly buggers again. Thanks for your continuing support – I hope you enjoy this**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Make Believe You Love me one More Time**_

"Not pleased to see me then?"

He was leaning against the flimsy door frame with his arms folded across his chest and a broad smirk across his face, a picture of relaxation, although to anyone who knew him well, as she had once upon a time, there was more than a hint of uncertainty in his expression that told her he wasn't as sure of himself as he'd have her believe.

"Sorry … bit surprised that's all, what you doing 'ere … Sir?"

"I'll tell you in a minute" He wrinkled his nose " _What_ the actual FUCK is that god-awful smell in here Molly?"

"You just called me Molly"

"Did I? Jesus, what is that smell? Whatever it is, it's making my eyes water"

"Her nappy needs changing, that's all" She giggled as she looked at the expression on his face "Stop making such a fuss, you'd stink too if your nappy needed changing like hers does …. Sir"

"Hope I never have to find out …."

"You might gonna 'ave help me here a bit, can you 'old her for a minute while I get some stuff, I've got nowhere to put her down"

"Oh no, no, no, nope, definitely not, I don't have to might gonna have to do anything of the kind, what the hell's wrong with over there?" He nodded his head to indicate the long surface against the wall of the hut "Bloody hell, she smells like she's had some sort of nuclear explosion"

"She can't 'elp it, she hasn't been well" She had no intention of putting the baby down where he suggested, she was determined that she hadn't just spent more than an hour scrubbing the hell out of it to put a shitty baby down on the spotlessly clean and germ-free surface "Can't put her on there she might roll off, don't worry, I'll put her down on the floor"

"Oh bloody hell, come on then"

He put out his arms to take the baby from her as she'd known he would when she'd told him that the hard mud floor with the sand blowing in from under the door was her only other option.

"You're not endearing yourself to me, you do know that don't you?"

He was now laughing as much as she was, albeit with his nose wrinkled and his head turned away as she leaned over and plonked the baby in his arms so that he made a point of leaning backwards away from her and then mouth breathing to try and avoid inhaling the worst of the admittedly foul smell that was emanating from her bottom half. The baby was staring up at him with an extremely solemn expression on her tiny, pinched little face, huge brown eyes wide open and gazing at him until she closed them to a slit and a very tell-tale expression of deep concentration appeared on her face, an expression that made Molly go off into a loud peal of laughter and made an expression of horror pass over his face.

"0h no, shit, no I don't mean that, I mean just hurry up will you Molly? I think she may be going to do it again, and stop laughing, it's not funny"

"No it's not ….. sorry ….. Sir … but I think I make you right, she 'as done it again" Her shoulders were shaking with laughter as she leaned over and took the baby from him "And you called me Molly again"

He sniffed dubiously at his fingers before checking his sleeves and then the rest of his combats for suspicious damp patches or stains.

"Slip of the tongue in the heat of the moment"

"You'd better wash yer hands …Sir, 'ere" Molly was now struggling not to carry on laughing as she nodded her head indicating the bowl of warm soapy water she'd put down "Just in case"

"Lovely" He stopped laughing and looked at her with suspicion "Just in case of what?"

"She might still be a bit, you know, contagious"

"Oh god" He looked at her "You're enjoying this aren't you?"

She couldn't stop another laugh from escaping as she did her best to look innocent and as if nothing was further from her mind as she stripped layers of soiled clothing, holding each bit carefully between her thumb and forefinger before dropping them one by one on the floor because she'd forgotten to get a plastic sack with the sealable top before she'd started.

"Nah, course not, why would think that?" She took a deep breath and again did her best to get her urge to piss herself with laughter under some sort of control "Could you pass me one of them bags please? …. Sir" She nodded indicating the general direction of the pile of disposal sacks.

"Here" He passed it over but held firmly onto the corner when she tried to take it out of his hand "Only if you stop laughing at me …. and stop calling me Sir, deal?" He sniffed dubiously at his fingers once again.

"You told me to call you that … Sir"

"I've changed my mind"

She was biting her lip making a desperate attempt to control the bubble of laughter that was doing its utmost to escape and tried instead to concentrate on avoiding ending up wearing the shit that had leaked all over. Even with gloves and a tabard it still required focus to make bloody sure she didn't end up stinking to high heaven, and she was trying desperately hard to do it without putting the baby down on one of her super-hygienic surfaces, she'd got absolutely no wish to start all over again with the bloody scrubbing brush. What the smelly little bugger really needed of course was a thorough hosing down, with a shower or even a hose pipe, but dunking her bum and legs in and out of the bowl of water seemed to her to be the best way of getting a result when there was no running water, the running water had stopped running hours before, so she had to make do best way she could. Baby bum wipes wouldn't stand a prayer …..

"Thought you was a dad, didn't Sam ever have shitty nappies needing changing?"

"Not like that, I'm bloody sure I'd have remembered if he had, and anyway I didn't do nappies, not my job"

" _WHAT_? You're not gonna say its women's work are you? you wouldn't bloody dare"

"Of course not, even if it is ….. it's nice to hear you laugh like that"

"Ditto"

Molly had a sudden urge to lean across and kiss his cheek and then a disturbing memory of the last time she'd said that to anyone, not that she could remember saying it exactly, but she did remember seeing the footage on her phone, so she had said it, a memory which now instantly wiped the smile from her face. Oh fuck, yeah, Adam, she was going to have to tell him about Adam at some point, or maybe not, it all depended on her getting her shit sorted because if she did, then she wasn't going to have to tell anyone anything about anything, which should feel like it'd be a relief, but didn't.

"We really need to talk don't we?"

"Do we, what about?"

"Let me see now, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings, what do you think I'm talking about?"

"I got no idea what you're bloody on about, what 'ave cabbages gotta do with anything?"

"You've never read the Walrus and the Carpenter then?"

"Nah, why would I? And what's that gotta do with any of this?"

"Never mind, it really doesn't matter, but I'd still like us to have that chat …. only if you want to of course"

"I dunno, hadn't really thought" A great big fat whopping lie if ever she'd told one, she'd thought about very little else in the three months since she'd first clapped eyes on him again in the departure hall at Brize "Okay, I'd like that, well, if that's what you want, but not 'ere, eh? It does pen and ink a bit in 'ere"

"Bloody right it does, I need to go and find some fresh air"

"Good luck with that one" She thought for a second "Let me know if you find any won't you?"

"Indeed"

He turned to walk out to get away from the smell that was making it so difficult for him to breathe properly so that he didn't see the broad happy grin that spread over her face at his words as he left her to finish off dunking the baby's very, very skinny little buttocks and legs in and out of the plastic bowl and then couldn't help shaking his head when he saw exactly what Molly had meant when she'd said that the child would benefit from a few square meals, there was almost no flesh on her at all so that she looked more like a little skinned rabbit than anything else. He was almost at the door when he stopped and rubbed at the back of his neck before looking back over his shoulder, his smile half-suppressed by his teeth worrying at his bottom lip.

"Molly?"

"That's three times now you've said it … Boss"

"Please don't, you did promise me, remember? And it's as bad as calling me Sir, but then you know that"

"Sorry ….. what?"

"On second thoughts it doesn't matter, I'll…. errr…. I'll see you later"

He'd almost given into the impulse to repeat what he'd said on the runway at Sana'a, the day that everyone's thoughts had been back in a ditch in Afghan, only this time to say it loud enough for her to hear, but stopped before the words got said. No matter how much he wanted to start repairing the damage he'd done, this was the wrong place and definitely the wrong time, and completely inappropriate in the circumstances.

-OG-

Their time in Sana'a had been dire, the boredom extreme. The seemingly endless and unvarying patrols which were supposedly designed to protect civilians who'd been caught up in the crossfire of the civil war, farmers mainly but also anyone still living in the capital city, if there was anyone. Everywhere was mostly deserted except for the handful of people carrying on working the fields and taking fuck all notice of them, and, as far as they could tell, even less notice of the Saudi jets that were screaming backwards and forwards overhead looking for somewhere or someone to bomb. How exactly they were supposed to protect these civilians from air raids was a bit of a moot point although fortunately they didn't have to find the answer and as far as they could tell, there was zero threat from the ground so once the natural wariness about getting caught in an air raid had become a vague concern rather a definite fear at the thought of an imminent catastrophe, it was very, very boring. Hours of inactivity so that time hung very heavily on their hands, despite all the best efforts of Kingy and Charles to keep them motivated and fit, not to mention occupied so that idle hands or minds didn't start creating mayhem.

They were euphoric when he told them that they were out of there, the thought of actually going somewhere, even if that somewhere was a road trip towards their eventual return to the U.K and home. The renewed appetite for banter got louder and more and more raucous as soon as their transport pulled up ready to transfer them to Djibouti from their current home in the military building the UN had commandeered for them. A lorry, a large canvas-sided lorry that looked so old and decrepit that it could have been something left over from world war two, or out of a film, if you discounted the blue insignia on the canvas. It had a rough plank down each side for them to sit on and no safety equipment at all, no belts, no armour, no armaments, nothing to protect them on the 240 mile drive across a country that was apparently being torn apart by a vicious civil war.

"Fuck me, do you think the shiny arses back home have forgotten what's supposed to be going on here, why we're even here in the first place?"

"Well it certainly looks that way, doesn't it? Still I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that someone driving a desk didn't look at a map and decide it was walking distance"

Charles knew he sounded cynical which actually wasn't like him, but he was bored as fuck as the rest and really had no idea what the people higher up the chain of command thought they were doing sending a bunch of highly trained soldiers thousands of miles away from home to sit on their arses for three months doing fuck-all, and he'd had far too much time on his hands in recent weeks to simply sit and _think._

"Well I won't be sorry to get out of this dump and don't matter to me if we have to go in that crate" Mansfield grinned "I don't think there's anyone living here apart from us, I think they all pissed off out of it a long time back" He paused and grinned again, his face brightening even more at the thought "Still that's us now 'n all, eh?"

"Oh dear, haven't you enjoyed this lovely little break in the sun?"

"Not even going bother answering that Boss"

The journey was tedious, long and dusty as well as was exceedingly uncomfortable on the backsides sitting on a plank the whole way, which was all of them except Georgia Lane who got to sit in the seat next to the driver after Charles had called on them all to stop their bloody bitching and moaning and to show some gentlemanly instincts.

"Boss always has had a soft spot for the medics you should know that by now"

"That'll do Fingers"

Charles pretended that he hadn't heard some comedian ask Fingers whether that shouldn't be a hard spot and the gale of laughter that followed.

"Just saying that's all, just reminding everyone, remember what he was like when Dawsey was our medic?"

"Strike one" Charles had begun to walk away, but not before he shot a warning look over his shoulder "Unless of course you're volunteering your colleagues to be up at 5 for a 10k run every morning in Cyprus"

"Shut the fuck up Fingers"

The chorus of shouts from the colleagues in question was deafening, sometimes Fingers needed to be reminded that his big mouth had been known to have unfortunate consequences for the rest of them.

-OG-

"Hello, you massive cockwombles, lowering the bleeding tone again I see"

"You cheeky little wotsit, I'll have you know we've come all this bloody way in a crate just to make sure you girlies get to Cyprus safely …and bloody uncomfortable it was let me tell you, martyrs that's what we are, every one of us ….. gentlemen who came all this way to protect you from …. whatever shit it is you need protecting from … just ask the Boss, he'll tell you, and the bleeding weather here's a bit shit 'n all isn't it, is it always like this?" He looked around at the clouds of sand being whipped up by the strong wind.

"Nah, Brains, sometimes it's shite"

"Stop pissing about, I was serious"

"I'm not, honestly, this is good for 'ere, what we call a nice day, 'n listen mate, if you call me a girlie again I'll start chopping bits off you with a machete, it's dead easy to find one ' ere, 'n I'll start with your balls"

"Nice to see you too Dawsey, now shut the fuck up being violent and come and give us a hug"

"Nah thanks, I'm fussy about who I touch"

She giggled, then held her arms out inviting him to come over and hug her as he stood up and moved from the group sitting on the ground with their backs to the wind as they did their best to avoid the inevitable sand-blasting that was second nature to the girls after three months. The lads reminded her strongly of the group of young men that had been sitting in almost the same spot the day that they'd arrived. For a start she was very conscious of Charles in her peripheral vision, he was flanked by Lane and Sergeant Morris, all three off them stood together off to one side of the group as she went from one after the other of 2 section, high-fiving and being hugged and kissed loudly on both cheeks by her erstwhile colleagues. He had this brooding stare on his unguarded face as he watched until he inclined his head to listen to something Lane was saying and the shutters came down making him inscrutable again…. Molly could only hope that whatever Lane was saying to him wasn't something about her.

For some reason she actually wasn't one bit worried about him and Lane, good looking though the other girl was, or about him and Sergeant Morris, who wasn't, she was nice enough but no-one could call her a 'looker', and it was always going to be a bloody fact of life that looking the way he did there was going to be women wanting to be around him. Laughing the way they had earlier had tied her stomach into knots just the same as it always used to and she'd forgotten how a little bit of time spent with him could leave her all bloody churned up and filled with a sort of nameless longing.

He'd said he wanted to talk, that he wanted them to talk, but then hadn't answered when she'd asked what he wanted them to talk about, had just quoted some ….. stuff … about cabbages or some shit like that, but then she didn't even know what she wanted him to mean. Well she did, but her bullshit radar had been so bloody faulty before where he was concerned that she wasn't sure how the fuck she'd even know if he meant anything he said. That's if he was even going to say anything like that about anything … like that.

-OG-

"You going to stay in there all bloody day?"

Having short hair meant Tilly didn't fully appreciate the pleasure of standing under a hot shower for as long as she wanted and washing a ton of sand out of her hair so that rubbing it dry with a towel wouldn't feel like she was sandpapering her scalp.

"Yeah, all night as well probably"

"Come on hurry up, I'm bleeding hungry"

"Okay, but I'm coming straight back in 'ere afterwards"

The array of food on the breakfast buffet meant that not even the 50 sausage challenge champions knew quite where to start, coming as it did after three months of field rations, so that there were a lot of very indecisive people wandering up and down trying to make choices.

"What is that you're drinking?"

"It's a smoothie, good for you they reckon" She looked down at her glass instantaneously aware of the latest arrival at the buffet table "It tastes okay, and I can have me coco-pops after, healthy breakfast 'n that"

"Coco-pops aren't good for you"

"Says the girl who eats Nutella out the jar with a spoon"

"Sometimes I need a sugar-hit, it's medical" Tilly cackled.

"Yeah right"

"What's in that anyhow, it looks a bit … green?"

"I dunno do I? It's some sort of …. green shit ….. with pineapple ….. tastes nice, here try some"

"No thanks, you chose it you drink it"

"You don't know what you're missing"

"Not about to find out either"

She was 100% aware of the look on Charles' face as he smiled across at them, at the way they were nudging each other and falling about laughing as he spooned in the hamster food with rat droppings that he favoured for breakfast. She'd never managed to get him to choose something decent like a bowl of chocolate flavoured something or other, even coco-pops maybe, even though he'd sometimes put his spoon in her bowl and nicked hers, she wondered whether he still remembered.

Maybe she'd find out later, although the thought of that made her all churned up. She wished she knew what it was he wanted to talk to her about and then maybe she could relax and enjoy herself a bit, she hadn't enjoyed it much last time she was here ….

-OG-

 _ **A/N: If this needs any edit, blame Debbie and Lesley who had their persuasive boots on… thank you everyone for your continued support as this moves on to Part 3 – there are one or two little wrinkles that need a hell of a lot of ironing out before we can get even a hint of an HEA …. But every journey starts with a single step (cliché alert, but true) so Chapter 9 will see whether that first step is even a possibility …**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Lay your Warm and Tender Body next to mine**_

"Well, well, well, so you're still alive, had you dead and buried" He laughed obviously completely unamused.

"I'm sorry, really I am, honestly this is first chance I've had"

"Yeah? Well, last I heard was bloody months back and you were in a Land Rover being driven by some fuck wit who didn't even know how to fucking drive and then …. zilch, nada, bugger all, disappeared off the face of the sodding earth, what happened to 'I promise I'll keep in touch' Hmmm?"

"I'm sorry Adam, I really am sorry, but it was difficult, there weren't a signal in the camp, it were a bit of a rat-hole actually 'n we couldn't get our phones charged … said I'm sorry"

Okay it was partially true. The bit about the signal and charging her phone was true but it was more than twenty four hours since they'd got off the plane at Akrotiri and she'd thought about calling him over and over, because as soon as her battery had charged she'd seen for herself just how many times he'd tried to get hold of her and how his messages had got more and more shitty so that she wasn't sure what she was going to say, what the fuck do you say when you know you've broken a shed-load of promises and you haven't got a good excuse let alone a good reason?

Well, apart from keep on saying sorry of course, but the more she apologised the less it sounded like the truth, even to her own ears, and the easy camaraderie they'd once shared felt like a thing of the past now or maybe it was that she felt dead guilty about him and didn't know why, it wasn't like they were ever a real couple or anything. The only thing that was comforting was that this was Adam so he was more likely than not to believe her bullshit.

"I'm sorry you was worried" Shit, there she was, saying it again "So, am I divorced yet?"

Oh fuck, nice one Molly. She could have kicked herself as soon as the words left her mouth, she could and should have worded that a whole lot better. He'd obviously been worried and she hadn't even asked him how he was before she'd gone straight in and demanded to know whether she was shot of him yet and she hadn't meant it to sound quite like that. That was really harsh. She'd rehearsed a bit of what she was going to say about the court and the divorce 'n that and then as soon as she'd heard his voice she'd forgotten all those tactful little questions and phrases. But she couldn't say anything to Charles about any of it at all until she knew everything, nor that there were any guarantees that he'd even be interested, she could sort of hear him now saying 'what are you telling me for?' but if he did care he was bound to bleeding well start interrogating her.

-OG-

"Sex-on-Legs was looking for you, asked me if I knew where you were" Tilly shrugged "Why can't we have a boss that looks like him …. with a voice like his? …. He's dead sexy, not like the rough bunch we've got"

"What did he want, did he say?"

Shit, shit, shit, she'd missed him, she'd hung around on that bloody terrace for what felt like hours and wouldn't you know it, sods law, as soon as she'd given up and gone inside, he'd appeared looking for her. It was almost as if Lady Luck had it planned like that.

"What did you say?"

Molly was offering up a silent prayer that Tilly hadn't come over all helpful and told him she'd gone to phone her husband, and then felt a little flood of relief when she remembered that there was no danger of that, that thank fuck Tilly didn't even know she had one. The last thing she wanted was for him to find out from someone else ….. she didn't even know how exactly she was going to explain it, but was pretty bloody sure that she didn't want someone else to start embroidering it into some fairy tale bollocks full of lovey-dovey hearts and flowers shit.

"He didn't say and I didn't know where you were so I couldn't tell him, could I?" Tilly looked at her "So where were you?"

"Nowhere, just on the phone to me mum, did he leave a message?"

"Nope, not that I heard, but then he looked at me with that knicker dropping smile of his and I was overcome with _lust_ so I even forgot to ask if I could help him with anything instead" She sniggered suggestively "I said before, he'd only have to ask _._ "

"TILLY, keep your bloody voice down for fuck sake, if Ma Morris hears you she'll have you hung" She did her best to keep a straight face and failed miserably "Don't let her hear you calling her rough neither, not sure how much of a sense of humour she's got"

"Sad old bag, fancies him herself doesn't she, ugly old boot, did you see her fawning all over him at breakfast? Not that he'd look at her when he can have me, she's bloody old enough to be his mother ….. how old do you think he is?"

"No idea, far too bloody old for you"

"I like my men mature ….. the older they are the better at it they are" Tilly sniggered again "And don't try and tell me you've never noticed how bloody sexy he is, cause I won't believe you"

"See how sexy you think he is when he's yelled at you to get out your pit at stupid o'clock in the morning and made you run round and round some sodding compound in 40 degree heat _, in full kit_ , like he did me, and when he shouts at you the whole bloody time"

"I'd do my best to make sure he didn't yell at me, he'd be a very happy boy"

"Yeah, but that's not what we're bleeding talking about is it and he's a boy now is he? I thought you liked them ancient, needing help with ….. stuff …. and you're not funny so stop sniggering"

She'd hardly known Tilly before they'd started on this tour but had found that they shared a very similar view of the world, well, a similar appreciation of Charles' finer points anyway, although Molly would have loved to tell her to forget it, that she had absolutely no chance because he was hers, except of course that he wasn't, but she still couldn't see him ever going anywhere near Tilly. He simply wouldn't do that, not the Charles she knew.

"And anyway what about when he yells that you're too fucking slow and puts you on latrine clean? Believe me, Tills, he don't look bloody gorgeous then, and you can wipe that smirk off of your face, I meant too slow running, NOTHING ELSE, and definitely not what you're thinking"

"Sorry, I can't help the way my mind works, can I? I still would though ….. and don't tell me you wouldn't cause you would, go on, be honest"

"I am being honest and nah I wouldn't….. he might be married or some'ing, you don't know, and even if he's not, he'd have to have a personality transplant" She paused "And do you really want to wake up next to some bloke who's prettier than you are?"

"Thanks for that, Molls, nice of you I thought, and the answer is still yes please"

"Sorry, that didn't come out right, and stop bloody sniggering at everything I say"

-OG-

She was miles away, quietly daydreaming and picking up handfuls of silver dry sand and letting it drift through her fingers without really paying that much attention to anything. The lads were playing beach volleyball, so that she was half-watching them cheat and get all pissy with each other about it, yelling and shouting and swearing at one another as she started gazing unseeing at the dead calm sea. All that was missing was Eggy telling her that she could stop worrying about Smurf because he was going to recover, but that the Boss needed to have an operation because he was in a bit of danger. Eggy had sounded so doubtful about Charles' chances that he'd scared the bloody shit out of her, and even now when it was in the past and Charles had recovered, and even with everything that had happened after, she still couldn't forget how bloody frantic she'd been that day. She'd had to sit on this same beach and listen to Kinders and she couldn't do anything, nothing to find out how he was doing, she hadn't even known if he was still alive.

Now, looking back she couldn't believe that no-one guessed, she'd been so petrified that she was never going to see him again, ever. But they'd all believed in the Smurf and Molly bollocks that he'd been desperate to spread about, and she'd been just as bad because she'd let him do it. At the time it'd seemed the perfect smoke screen, but now she regretted that she'd told him that she'd never love him the way he wanted and that he'd died knowing that. Poor Smurf.

"Not going for a swim, then?"

"Fuck, don't do that, don't creep up on me like that, you keep on doing that 'n you're gonna give me a Julius Caesar, and you know I don't like wa'er"

"Sorry" He laughed without sounding in the least bit contrite "I just love the way you say 'hello' on planet Dawes and I didn't creep up, you were miles away" He laughed again "Hadn't you noticed it's actually quite hard to make a noise on sand, but I am sorry I didn't mean to startle you"

"You could 'ave coughed or some'ing …. and in case _you_ hadn't noticed it's bloody taters" She gave an exaggerated shiver and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, there was no way she was going to tell him that it wasn't so much that she hated water, it was more that she still couldn't swim.

He was towering over her blocking out the sun so she gestured for him to move and then nodded towards where the lads were messing about down near the water "They'll be in there in a minute and you'll see, they'll all be screaming that it's freezing their knackers off" She laughed "I was thinking about last time I was 'ere, that's all, about Smurf 'n that and how worried I was and how pissed I was that I had to waste time sitting on this beach when all I wanted was to get home … and I'll 'ave you know I talk like normal people talk, not like people off of your _planet_ "

"If you say so"

"I do say so"

She'd just deliberately tried to insinuate that she'd been worrying about Smurf that day, which was an insanely stupid thing to do when he knew full well that there wasn't a word of truth in that. He was laughing like he used to as he sat on the sand and accidentally brushed his arm against hers and then nudged her with his shoulder, trying to make her laugh, but instead making all the little hairs on her forearm sit up and her breathing go a bit funny, she suddenly seemed to have far too much breath. He folded his arms behind his head and lay back before giving this huge sigh of contentment and then closed his eyes for all the world as though he was about to drop off.

Molly immediately pretended she was engrossed in the free-for-all skirmish that was going on between the volleyball players, but was actually aware of every bloody breath that he took. His stomach looked concave where his 'T' shirt had ridden up and the gap between his shirt and his combats showed just how right she'd been when she'd first clapped eyes on him at Brize, he definitely had lost weight, so that he was even more lean than she remembered. Either that or he'd spent every spare minute of the last eighteen months or so in the bloody gym, which wasn't impossible given what a fit freak he was. The one thing that hadn't changed was that livid scar which was still pink and puckered so that it didn't look like it had faded at all and she had this sudden and totally insane impulse to lean over and trail her fingers along it, to see if it still made him shiver the way it always used to, and to ask him if it still hurt and whether he'd like her to kiss it better like she used to…..

Shit, she sat bolt upright as though someone had given her a poke with one of those electric cattle prodding things and dragged her eyes away from his body, hoping he hadn't noticed what she'd been looking at before she'd sat on her hands so hastily. Every instinct she had was telling her to bloody shift herself, to maybe go and join the lads as they all tried to drag one another into the sea, obviously doing their best to drown each other. Shit, shit, shit, sitting here on this beach, on her own next to him, close enough to put her hand out and touch him was a very, very bad idea.

"What do you think the chances are that they'll stay where they are and leave us alone?"

"Not great"

"Nope, you might be right, so how about we go for a walk, see if we can get away from them?"

Molly nodded, it couldn't possibly be any worse than sitting in a deafening silence trying to think of something intelligent or witty or even vaguely sensible to say to him while she kept her hands to herself because that was doing her head in. None of this was easy, it felt bloody awkward as he got to his feet and put out a hand to pull her to hers and then held on for just a fraction longer than was strictly necessary. Her hand seemed to have gone icy cold but his was warm and dry and was wrapped round hers so that she wanted desperately to cling on to him, this was the first time she'd had any sort of physical contact with him since that terrible day in Bath.

She didn't know what she'd expected when he said he wanted them to talk but had been afraid to build castles that would turn out to be total bollocks. The one thing she wanted to know was the one thing she couldn't ask, whether there was any chance of them starting again, whether he still loved her, even a little bit. But she was half-convinced that what he intended was to tell her nicely that it had been very good to see her but it was time now for her to fuck right off again and that he hoped she'd have a nice life.

-OG-

"This is strange isn't it?"

"Who you calling strange? I'm not strange, I'm gifted"

"Course you are, I've always known that" He looked down at her and gave a loud shout of laughter, throwing his head back and attracting unwanted attention from a highly curious 2 section, and then shook his head and chuckled as she gave a little skip and muttered about how she couldn't keep up and would he kindly slow the fuck down.

"Sorry, I'd forgotten what a little short-arse you are and I wasn't calling you strange, it was just that it's … weird to be walking along a beach like this, with you, that's all"

Charles significantly shortened his stride to help her keep pace, he'd genuinely forgotten how much she struggled to keep up with him, as they walked side-by-side along the water's edge and did their best to look as though they were just aimlessly chatting as they wandered along and not as if they were trying to get some privacy by putting as much distance between them and 2 section as possible.

"Weird is worse than strange" She giggled and then took a deep breath "You know that I'm sorry, don't you?"

"What for?" He laughed "Oh god, what have you done now?"

"Now? Nothing, I'm not talking about now, am I? I'm perfect now, nah, I'm talking about before, about …. well, you know"

"You were always perfect, that's nothing new" He smirked wishing more than anything that they were somewhere where he could hug her, or even hold her hand "I thought you were apologising for calling me a _bossy prick"_

"Oh yeah" She looked up and smirked as she pushed her hair back from where the sea breeze was blowing it about like a flag and then giggled, her nerves were kicking in big time so that it was difficult for her to keep a straight face "I did say that didn't I? Sorry"

"No you're not, you're not sorry at all, you thought I asked for it and you were right, I was being a bossy prick so there's nothing to be sorry about, Molly, I'm the one who should be saying sorry, and I am, I don't know where the fuck I got the idea that I could lay down the law about what you could and couldn't do, you didn't have to ask my permission for fuck sake, I was behaving like I was still your boss _"_

"Yeah you were a bit, but you was right, I never thought about how anything I did could 'ave dropped Quaseem and Bashira in the shit, put them in danger, but I never meant to hurt them, or anybody, especially not you, I just didn't think, so I'm sorry"

"No, you did nothing wrong, I'm the one who needs to say I'm sorry, it all got out of hand and the next thing I knew I was yelling at you and laying all sorts of blame at your door for things that had nothing whatsoever to do with you, looking back now, I can't believe I did any of that"

She wanted to ask him what it was he'd been blaming her for, but wasn't sure that she wanted to hear the answer.

"Are you sayin' you never meant it when you said it was hard to put up with me mess?"

"I wouldn't go that far, the room looked like a bomb had gone off in a clothes shop"

"Stop exaggerating, it weren't that bad, a bit Primark at sale time maybe"

She giggled and could see out of the corner of her eye that his laugh was loud enough to make the lads turn to look at them again. It was now her turn to wish that they were having this conversation somewhere where she could hug him before she told him anything at all about what she'd done.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Okay, sods law, got up this morning all ready to do a whole load of on-line stuff, got half way through answering some messages and Mr Virgin turns our broadband off – again -ring the fault line- again - and a robot tells me that "In order to improve the service in your postcode we're switching your broadband and television off – hope to be back by 5 o'clock" they didn't say which day – 5 o'clock comes – and goes – now 8.o'clock, allegedly - 8.00 and it's back, oh gee thanks, truly wonderful! I've got a good suggestion – now you've put the bloody thing back on, LEAVE it on and give us what we're paying for – grrrr – oh and to add to the joy, no Kindle all day either. Got this all ready in the hopes that at some time before hell freezes over I could get back on-line and post before they decide to improve things by turning everything off again.**_

 _ **Rant over, thank you for your kind reviews, and I do hope you continue to enjoy their journey. Chapter 10 will be as soon as ….. Virgin permitting. I hope everyone has a nice weekend.**_

-OG-


	10. Chapter 10

_**Hold your Warm and Tender Body close to Mine**_

 _ **-OG-**_

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got"

"Whatever"

Molly had to keep breaking into a little jog as she tried to keep pace with him, he'd obviously forgotten all about the need to slow down enough for her to keep up as he focussed on whatever it was he was thinking about and she genuinely hadn't got a clue what that was even supposed to mean. She wasn't even sure she knew what it was he'd said because he'd said it so bloody quietly it had been a bit of a strain to hear him.

"Sorry …. I always felt comfortable when I was in control of the things around me and it suited me, I _liked_ it that way, but Rebecca told me I'm always so busy making sure I'm doing the right thing, that I'm meeting everyone else's _expectations_ that I spend too much time and energy thinking about that, instead of listening to what's in my own heart, and she's right, that is exactly what I've always done"

What? At first it hadn't registered what he was actually saying and then when the penny dropped the full horror of what he'd just said hit her. Talk about being brought back down to earth with a bloody great bump, it was the last thing she'd suspected, shit, it had never even occurred to her, although why it hadn't she didn't know, it was after all the most logical explanation. But fuck, why _her_ for fuck sake _?_ How on earth had Rebecca got involved in it, apart from the blindingly obvious, and why hadn't she had the faintest inkling that it was even on the cards? Rebecca? fucking Rebecca, when had she crawled out from under her stone exactly?

"What she was saying, of course, was that I should be far more concerned with what she wanted, and I really can't blame her for that, can I, she'd got every right to expect me to put her and Sammie first"

How lovely, here he was, on this beach with her, walking with her and talking to her about ….. Rebecca _,_ so that all those glib laughter-filled words about him having a wife at home had just got up and bitten her on her bum. She had been getting over him, at least she'd learned that life went on without him and every day it had been getting easier and easier, so why the fuck did he have to re-appear out the woodwork and what the fuck had made him think it was a good idea to start explaining stuff that she didn't have to know, what the fuck was he telling her for? Why was he telling her stuff that he must have known would hurt.

"Sorry, I didn't know that you and her… "

"What?" He seemed to come back to the here and now from wherever it was he'd been for the last few minutes, he'd been bloody miles away so that he frowned and shook his head like he was bewildered "What _are_ you talking about? There's no "me and her" you know we're not together, Molly, well apart from being Sam's parents, so whatever gave you an idea like that? That was over a bloody lifetime ago, I thought you knew that, of course you knew that"

"Dunno, just thought, what with you talking about her like that"

"I'm sorry I didn't think" He shook his head again as if to clear his thoughts "They bloody forced me into seeing some shrink at Headley and he kept on that I should 'examine my motives', that this feeling of having lost control of everything around me was just temporary, although to be fair to him he was talking about making me re-consider my decision to throw my career down the shitter. But giving the army the elbow wasn't the only thing was it and I took a long hard look at myself, then didn't much like what I saw. There was me, almost ten years older than you and it doesn't matter what you say, that's a fucking lifetime, one career just about over, fucked, and one marriage well and truly fucked as well, by me I might add, and I wasn't even sure I was ever going to be fit enough to find something else I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and then there was you, still a kid with it all in front of her" He smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes "You know what my dad said to me first time he met you, the first time that you came to Bath? He said that you were absolutely lovely and that he could see exactly why I wanted to be with you, but that you were very young, and he was right"

"You didn't always think I was a kid, not as I remember"

This was getting better and better. So not only hadn't she been good enough, hadn't always told him everything about everything so that he felt like she'd lied and hidden stuff , but now she hadn't been old enough either. He'd apparently woken up one day with his dad's words ringing in his bloody ears and instead of seeing her as his sexy girlfriend, someone who loved him to bits and who he loved in return, she'd become someone who was good for a shag, but was far too young for anything else, just what she needed to hear.

"I am not explaining this very well am I?" He glanced at her sideways and gave a rueful grin "I hated it that you didn't tell me about Kabul, that you didn't seem to need me to tell you what to do, but that was ridiculous wasn't it, but I felt old _,_ and washed up … and fucked. There was no question about how I felt about you, but I started asking myself whether I was taking advantage of the fact that you loved me, or thought you did" He shrugged "That's one of the reasons that the army has those bloody rules, Molly, to stop dirty old men using the power they have to take advantage of young girls who are …I don't know, flattered by the attention or who've perhaps got a bit of a crush, but who've got everything in front of them"

"You never asked me about any of it though did you? You didn't ask me if I felt _flattered_? nah, you just left me thinking I'd fucked it all up and I knew that I had a bit, I should have told you about Kabul, but it was really hard" She gulped and did her utmost to stop the tears of self-pity that were gathering at the backs of her eyes and the top of her nose from spilling over, there was no way she was going to cry if she could possibly help it "And maybe I quite like dirty old men, did you think of that?" She sniffed and then snorted as she remembered her conversation with Tilly about the advantages of sleeping with an older man.

"I know" He ignored what she'd said about liking dirty old men "I know that I was the one who fucked up, but I did think I was doing it for the right reasons at the time, even if it did nearly kill me"

He stopped walking and turned to face her as they forgot all about the very nosy and very noisy buggers who were now fortunately a good long way away from them on the beach but were unfortunately still close enough to get a ring-side view if they gave into temptation and touched one another. A sudden particularly loud expletive broke the spell and dragged them back to walking side by side with a degree of decorum.

"After a bit it ….. got better, improved … the way things do, and I went back to work so the shrink had done his job well, and actually I thought I was getting over you, getting there at least, and then I saw you in the bloody departure hall at Brize. There I am, fit again to be off on tour and then …. there you are, again, exactly like the first time I set eyes on you, only this time you weren't looking a bit lost because some bastard Rupert was being a bully, this time you were laughing and talking to Fingers as though you hadn't got a care in the world. You still gave me that same big fat "fuck you" look that you gave me the first time round though didn't you? Before you went back to laughing with him and it didn't make anything any easier knowing that it was all my own fault that I'd lost you"

"Does this mean that you've missed me?"

"What, have I missed the way you make me laugh or have I missed the way that you can't cook and how it makes me feel when you smile at me? Or have I missed the way a tsunami of mess follows you about everywhere you go? Let me see now, I've thought about you every single day so of course I've bloody missed you, I've missed _us_ , did you need to ask?"

"Yeah I did, but you know what, I've thought about you 'n all and I've missed you too, and I'll have you know I'm in the army so I don't make a mess it's just you're a neat freak and I can bloody cook, I just don't choose to that's all"

"You know I don't care if you leave everything you own on the floor or if you can't boil a fucking kettle, it doesn't change anything and it certainly doesn't stop me loving you, nothing can do that"

"And I don't care if people do think you're some crusty old bugger and that I'm too young, I'll just let them think that I'm your carer"

"Lovely, that's an attractive picture, you'll have me in a nappy next" He put his head back and gave a triumphant shout of laughter, a laugh that was full of happiness.

She couldn't even find the right words to start telling him, to basically fuck the whole thing up again. Okay so he hadn't actually said that he wanted them to get back together but that was what he'd meant, so there was a brief moment when she seriously considered whether she could take the easy way out and not tell him about Adam at all. Maybe there was no real need for him to know about any of it, not now that it was all over bar the shouting and the Decree Absolute plopping on the mat through the letterbox, except that she couldn't lie to him again by not telling him and it wasn't going to get any easier by putting it off. There was a sick feeling of dread in her stomach at the thought of how he was going to feel, how she would feel if the boot was on the other foot and he'd upped and married someone else almost before her side of the bed had got cold. Shit.

"You know I was a bit upset when it all kicked off, don't you?"

"I don't know what to say about how sorry I …."

"Nah, just shut up and listen cos this is really hard for me to tell you and I know you're gonna be well pissed at me and I don't blame you, really I don't ….."

"Oh god, what the fuck have you done? Come on tell me, you're scaring me now"

"Well, around that time I was a bit upset as I said, so most evenings I was sort of one Jaegerbomb short of a police caution 'n I did some pretty dumb stuff and I've got this mate, and well she's really into all that touchy feely crap and anyway, cut a long story short we went to Vegas on this sort of pilgrimage. She said it would be good for me to get closure or some such bollocks, but it turned into a fucking nightmare. Night before we came home we went to the casino 'n I might have got a teeny tiny bit trollied, and" Molly gulped loudly and grimaced "Oh shit, there's no easy way to tell you this, I went, well we both went to one of them dead tacky Elvis Chapel places and we'd hooked up with this stag party 'n …. Well I sorta ended up getting married and I'm really, really sorry"

"What? You got married, what the fuck are you trying to tell me here, that you had one of those fake weddings with a fake Elvis, is that what you're telling me?" He was standing still and looking at her as if she'd just grown another head, and then threw his head back and started to laugh, an incredulous expression on his face "Who was he?"

"Who, the groom? Mine I mean, not the stag party one, I didn't know, did I? Not then, I mean I do now of course, but then, well he was just one of the stag party and he was as shit-faced as I was, so I'd probably known him best part of an hour I s'pose, or maybe as long as two, I dunno, but I were a bit upset at the time"

"AN HOUR? Oh god Molly, I'm so sorry, but I really can't let you out of my sight can I?"

"Stop bloody laughing, it's not funny" She began to giggle in spite of herself, his laughter was infectious "Anyhow we thought it was just one of them stupid things you do when you're rat-arsed and we could forget all about it once we was sober, that it was just a bit of a joke, a bit of fun, and it was only when we got back home we found out it was all legal and that we had to get a divorce"

"If course it's not legal … is it?" Suddenly he'd stopped pissing himself with laughter, suddenly he wasn't finding it so funny "Fuck, are you telling me that you're still together, you and what's his name, what is his name by the way?" He paused "Are you telling me that I'm going to have to knock on the door and ask him if it's okay for me to take his wife out for dinner? You should have told me before, I could have bought you a wedding present, a cookery book perhaps"

"That is not funny and if you buy me a cookery book I'll brain you with it, his name's Adam and he's actually a really lovely bloke, but we've never been _married_ as such, we're not together, not the way you mean anyhow" She decided to forget all about their wedding night, it hadn't exactly been the most memorable sex of her life and Charles certainly didn't need to know any of the details of how the first she'd know about any of it had been that moment when she'd realised she wasn't alone in her bed "Our divorce is going through now so we're nearly there, he was sorting it while I was on this tour" She turned and grinned at him, wanting him to remember that this was history repeating itself, sort of "We're just waiting for the whatdoyoumecallit the absolute to come through and then it's bingo, bango, all over and done with. Bloody glad you think it's so funny though cos I don't think I do and I really thought you'd be, I dunno, a bit upset I s'pose"

"I would be, I'd be more than bloody upset if I thought you actually had moved on to ….. _Adam_ …. but as it is …."

"Well I haven't, I haven't moved on at all"

"Ditto"

-OG-

"You know she's a seriously unhinged deviant under all that camouflage don't you? Any minute now she's gonna be swigging out of that bottle of water in her hand, except it's not water, it's neat Vodka and then she'll throw her combats on the barbecue before she starts demanding that he fucks her"

Tilly was whispering loudly in Molly's ear giving her a running commentary on the way Sergeant Morris was chatting to Charles as they all sat on the sand and ate overcooked barbecue.

"Shut up Tills, ….. silver lining" Molly waved her so-called hot dog in the air as she tried to deflect Tilly's attention from her watching brief "At least we won't get salmonella poisoning from under-cooked anything"

"What? Who the fuck cares? I'm not eating it its all crap, I just want to know what he sees in a dried-up old bag like that? Droopy tits and a wrinkled old arse and I bet she's got a …"

"I said shut up, I don't even wanna think about it, thanks"

Molly knew that he was as aware of her as she was of him and that he was smiling to himself as she and Tilly giggled, although she wondered if he'd find it quite as funny if he knew what they were laughing at. She could also see from his anxious little glances that he was deeply concerned about one or two members of 2 section who appeared to have been playing some drinking game ever since they were on the beach earlier so that now he was a tad worried that it was just a matter of time before one or more of them passed out face down on the sand or even more attractive puked their guts up. He was just hoping that they hung on until the Colonel had done his "Well done, you're a credit to the British Army" speech which he had yet to start. He wished the old fart would get on with it because Monk had apparently been showing the others just what he got up to back home in the pubs of Moss Side where he'd honed his drinking game techniques to perfection.

"Have a nice walk with the boss then, did you Molls?"

"Shit, don't creep up like that you made me jump, yes thanks Fingers, nice of you to ask mate, not that you're a nosy little tosspot or anything"

"Can't blame me for asking though, can you?"

"Nah, course not, can't blame me that I'm not gonna tell you anything though can you?"

"Come on Molls, I'm your mate and you know you want to"

"Fuck off"

She'd promised Charles that she would sit where he could see her and after about an hour of watching him being a hit with all the other women present and having eaten precisely half an over-cooked sausage and a mouthful of bread and then having drunk one more drink than was strictly good for her, she was now drunkenly contemplating letting them all see that he was very much taken.

It didn't make any difference, didn't matter at all that they hadn't managed even a few moments alone, well it did, because she desperately wanted to jump him and knew that he felt exactly the same, but there was nothing could be done about it while they were here. She decided she would complain to her MP about the lack of privacy and was composing her drunken self-righteous letter of complaint in her head when she caught his eye as he looked at her and smirked and then winked. A wink that was obviously seen by both Tilly and Sgt Morris who both immediately swivelled their heads to see who it was directed at and then both had eyebrows that shot skywards as they stared at her with almost open mouthed disbelief. Not that Molly even noticed as she smirked happily back at him and shrugged, they'd soon have all the time in the world.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Red letter day, 24 hours without an interruption to our broadband, yay! Thank you for your kind words and for the lovely reviews and please keep on reviewing, they are what keep me going. I know I'm not alone in being worried that no-one is actually going to want to read what I write. Chapter 11 sees them back in the U.K. with a birthday to celebrate and Christmas looming …..**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Hear the Whisper of The Raindrops**_

"Did you fucking _see_ the look on her face? You know I'm going to love you forever for that, don't you, even if I do have to haul your arse round the back and beat the crap out of you for not telling me"

"Go on then if you think you're 'ard enough, double fuckin' dare you" Molly giggled loudly as she made a threat straight from her past but with just enough menace in her voice to make Tilly back away from her slightly "And why the fuck do you wanna do that? What are you mithering on about this time?"

"You … and him ….. and how pissed off fuckface was when she realised that you'd fucked up all her chances of shagging him later on, but I know now what Fingers was on about earlier" She looked at Molly with speculation written all over her face, then frowned "You know, I always thought you were married, well that's what I heard anyhow"

Tilly nodded her head to indicate Charles who had gone back to paying polite attention to whatever it was that Sergeant Morris, aka fuckface was bending his ear about, his head tilted to one side as he listened to her every word, well to all intents and purposes anyway, although he had that 'this is so fascinating' glazed expression on his face that told Molly he was bored shitless.

"What you thought I was married to him and keeping it a secret? Yeah right, course I am" Molly deliberately misunderstood what Tilly was implying as she raised her eyebrows in fake disbelief and gave a loud snort of incredulous laughter "When you get to know Fingers a bit better, Till, you'll know that he talks out his arse most of the time and what he don't know he makes up, and as for me and the boss, well, like all of us who was in Afghan, we go way back, nothing else, nothing special, nothing at all for you to get arsey about and nothing for her to get her knickers in a knot over"

"He winked at you … what was all that about?"

"He winks at a lot of people"

"Does he? I've never noticed and I've done an advanced study as you know" Tilly gave a short laugh "What you're telling me then is that there's really nothing else going on with the two of you? Really? Shit, cos apart from I'd have to kill you for stealing him and not giving me details, you know, size of knob, skill with knob, I'd say weaknesses as well but he obviously wouldn't have any of them, but it would've been really good if it had meant that she got a big fat 'get fucked' from him"

"Don't think there's much danger of her getting anything from him, he looks bored stupid"

"Yeah, he does, doesn't he? Good boy"

What Molly really wanted to do was to smirk and tell Tilly very smugly that neither fuckface nor anyone else had a chance because he was HERS, well he would be hers again once they got home, and she'd got no intentions of sharing him with anyone. They were only going to be in this place for another twelve hours or so and for most of them she'd be in bed, asleep, on her own, mores the pity, and then an endless bloody crappy noisy flight in a Hercules and home, although what they were going to do once they got there or where they were going to go she hadn't a clue. First things first though, she was going to have to come up with some fabulous fool-proof plan, one that no-one would see through in a million years, to get her out of going back to barracks in the mini-bus with Tilly and the other medics.

-OG-

"Have I got this bloody right, stop me and tell me if I start to go wrong won't you, cos I can't quite believe what you've just told me, how much of this stuff have you had?"

Lisa waved her glass of Prosecco in the general direction of Molly who was sitting on the bar stool next to her with an ecstatically happy grin plastered all over her face. Despite Lisa's aspersions she was absolutely 100% stone cold sober, had had precisely two mouthfuls of fizzy water but was as high as a kite on happiness.

"I haven't, don't drink at lunchtime"

"What? Since when? Don't answer that, I can't hack born again smug especially when it's a load of bollocks, so let's see if I've got it right, this bloke, the one that you told me about before Vegas, the one that you said fucked with your feelings so much that he broke your bloody heart, the one we agreed was a knob who should have his dick chopped off and stapled to his head, well now you tell me that he's back and it's all kissy kissy, forgive and forget and all the rest of that shit? Just feel free to stop me if I get something wrong here, won't you?"

"So far you're pretty spot on, well, except for he's not a knob, Lees, he never has been and I never said that he was, did I? that was you said that when you was trying to cheer me up, and we're not technically together, me and him, not yet, but we will be. I mean, we couldn't out there cos it's not allowed, seeing as how he's a sort of senior officer ….. and I'm … not …. and then I had to go straight back to barracks when we got home, 'n he did 'n all, so I'm seeing him later"

She smirked, making no attempt to wipe the happy grin off her face or to control the bubble of excitement that kept trying to escape and which was making her want to skip round and high-five everyone sitting there quietly minding their own business while they had their lunch in the bar.

"So if he's an officer that means he's older than you, right? I mean how old is he? 40? 50?""

She didn't add the words 'I wouldn't put it past you, but you must be bloody mad' but they hovered unspoken in the air.

"40? Nah course he's not and it don't follow Lees, you can be an officer when you're still young, and yeah okay he's maybe a bit older than me, but …. alright he's thirty two, 'n that's not old, happy now?"

"Jesus, Molly, he's only a year younger than my boss, and he's a middle-aged goblin who's going to be doing a comb-over soon" She looked at Molly over the rim of her glass "And what about Adam? Does Adam know? Does he know about Adam? Did you even tell him?"

"Course I told him, he thought it was well funny cos he knows it weren't real, that we weren't real, Adam and me, he told me that otherwise he wouldn't have found it funny, and no, Adam don't know yet, it's none of his business but he won't care"

Molly drained her glass and waved it in the direction of the wine, suddenly water wasn't hitting the right spot. She wasn't finding this outing nearly as much fun as she'd anticipated when she'd rung and arranged it, she'd been really looking forward to talking to someone about him.

She'd had to keep her mouth zipped and keep a neutral expression on her face until they'd got back to Brize. Tilly hadn't been fully convinced by her bullshit and had been behaving like a bloody drugs sniffer dog, watching her like a hawk and looking for evidence so she'd had to be very careful to avoid looking at him at all during the flight home. Then the bloody girl had stuck to her like chewing gum on a shoe when they'd got into arrivals. Charles had tried to indicate with his eyes and eyebrows that Molly should follow him so that they could find a little corner somewhere to have a private conversation, although she'd already given up on maybe having a bit of a snog cos that was out the bloody question with Miss Marple on the case, but they hadn't even been able to do that. First of all Tilly was hanging round her like a bad smell and then loads of other people kept on coming up to him to grab his attention, so that in the end he'd given up and sent her a text saying he'd call her later, which had made her giggle a bit. He was standing less than six foot away from her and had had to send her a text.

"So Prince Charming didn't mind that you got so fucking blitzed you did a whole lot of stupid shit and that it was all his fault"

"It wasn't his fault, Lees, it was mine, and you thought it was well funny at the time, and when we got home you was the one told all the others, remember? You thought it was a joke then, and anyhow what about you? I remember you was just as blitzed as I was, and it was an accident that I was the one ended up with Adam and not you, so why are you being like this? I thought you'd be happy for me and I am gonna be with him, Lisa, I want to be with him and I don't want him to be all shitty with me over stuff I did when we was split up"

"Yeah okay, but it wasn't me that married some bloke she didn't know and then decides to show him the door as soon as her arsehole of an ex does her a favour and takes her back"

"I'm not sure what I'm even doing 'ere now, I thought you was my mate and I was dead 'appy and now I'm not, so thanks for that and none of it were like that and you fuckin' know it, don't know why you're saying all this shit?"

"Sorry, I'm being a bitch, aren't I? I Sorry, got a bit carried away and I never meant to piss on your parade, Moll, I am happy for you, really I am if he's what you want, but I can't help feeling you're jumping into this a bit and I feel dead sorry for Adam, that's all"

"What you talking about? Adam and me, it's not like that at all is it? You know as well as I do that he don't love me and I don't love him … I like him, we're mates and I hope we're gonna stay mates but that's all, and I know how much you like him, so why don't you go for it"

Fuck, one of these days she was going to learn that it was always better to engage your brain before you open your gob because once again she'd heard herself say something completely tactless, suggesting that her friend, one of her best mates, should go for her sloppy seconds as Nan would say, fuck seemed to sum it up nicely.

"And I didn't mean that the way it sounded"

"Bloody hope not, I hope I'll never be that desperate"

"Yeah, sorry"

She was lying again, she was sorry for being tactless but knew exactly how much Lisa liked Adam, in fact how much she'd liked him right from the very start so that she'd always found it difficult to believe that her and Adam weren't a real couple. The problem now was that she had been going to suggest her and Lisa found a flat to share somewhere, something that she'd just well and truly kyboshed because somehow she couldn't see that happening now. Shit, her and her big mouth.

-OG-

The noise of a door banging and then someone shouting woke her with a start from a five minute 'rest me eyes' nap that seemed to have turned itself into hours and hours of deep sleep so that it had got dark outside and she had no idea what the time was. All she did know was that she was chilly and frowsty and had bed hair, not to mention clothes that were creased to buggery.

They'd arranged for him to pick her up round the corner from the main gate at 6 o'clock which, according to the time on her phone, meant she had precisely eighteen minutes to do something with her face and her hair, brush her teeth so that her breath didn't stink when hopefully she'd be kissing him, find something to wear that didn't look like she'd been to bed in it and then get out of this place, get across the parade ground, down to the main gates and round the corner to meet him, SHIT. She had been planning on being ready and waiting, all organised and fragrant and tarted up to the nines, as much as she was capable of anyhow, but now she'd have to settle for being clean and bloody late.

"Thought you'd stood me up"

"Sorry, I was running a bit late" She looked at her watch, not bad considering, it was only 8 minutes past 6, it could have been a hell of a lot worse and she hadn't wanted to waste time by stopping to text him.

It was one of those things that she'd really missed as he got out of the car in the rain and held the door open for her where most blokes would have leaned across the seat and pushed it, wouldn't have dreamed of getting out and getting wet. But she loved the way that he did all that gentleman stuff and how it always made her feel. It made her feel like she was … well, cherished and she'd never be able to understand why some people thought it was patronising …..

"Where we goin'?"

"Somewhere I can kiss you without providing a photo opportunity for any passing squaddie with a phone, so we can either go home and get a takeaway, or we can go and find somewhere to eat that's far enough away so I can kiss you without an audience, you choose"

"What …home? BATH?"

"No, of course not, my home not my parents' house, I live in Ash Green, it's not very far" He raised his eyebrows "I thought you would have known that"

"Nah, I didn't keep tabs on you, why would I?" She'd thought for one horrible minute that they were about to set off on some two hour bloody drive in which case she should definitely have made time for a pee, but then carefully didn't add that she'd avoided anything to do with him for the past year but he probably knew that already without her telling him, he hadn't exactly sought her out either "Ash Green it is then"

He was right, it seemed to take no time at all before he was pulling up outside one of those converted workman's cottages. It was the middle one of a tarted up terrace, one of them with new windows that are supposed to look old and hanging baskets in the summer, but not in November obviously, although one of his neighbours had already got a wreath on the door. And it was handily just across from a very small and pretty pub which was definitely not the sort of place that squaddies go to get pissed as a rule. The house had one of those long front gardens with an old-fashioned lamp in it, one looked like a gas lamp but wasn't, it wasn't on anyway so it was all very dark. It didn't look as if any of his neighbours were in either, there were no lights on anywhere as Molly looked up and down the row without commenting, she could just tell from the road that it was all dead trendy …. and dead bloody expensive ….. although why that should come as a surprise she didn't know.

"Careful, it's slippery when it's wet"

His arm went round her shoulders and stayed there as she stumbled slightly on the path, and smiled her thanks but didn't say anything. All her gung ho confidence appeared to have buggered off somewhere and it seemed to have taken her ability to speak with it as this swarm of butterflies did aerobatics in the pit of her guts.

"You're very quiet, are you alright?"

He'd opened the door and had stood back to let her go in first while he patted his hand around on the wall obviously feeling for the light switch and she didn't know why she was she was starting to panic, she just was. She wanted to ask him not to put the light on but was too late as he flicked a switch and then kicked the door shut without looking at it as he moved to stand in front of her without saying anything else, just tucked her rain-wet hair behind her ears with fingers that were so gentle a shiver of anticipation ran down her back.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, well, I'm a bit nervous that's all"

"Believe me, you're not the only one"

His hand was shaking very slightly as he cupped her chin, and tilted it up to make her look at him, to look at the expression on his face, the one that she'd seen the very first time he'd told her that he loved her and that he didn't need to know everything about her to know that. But now he did know most of it, and it looked as though he still loved her despite that, she could see it in the way his eyes focussed on hers as he ran his thumb over her cheekbone and turned her legs to jelly. All the shyness and the nerves and the rest of it disappeared as her bones turned to water and she moved to bridge the gap between them so she could kiss him. Her slight movement was enough to make him lean forward and very gently brush his lips against hers, his bottom lip barely grazing hers as his hand moved to the small of her back and he pulled her towards him making her feel as though her heart was going to explode.

"God, you have got no idea how much I've missed you"

He was breathing the words against her lips as he started kissing her in a way that made it seem as though it was years since the last time he'd seen her, the last time that he'd held her like this.

"Yeah I 'ave, I've missed you too"

Suddenly she couldn't get close enough as she did her best to press herself against him and put her hands down to cup his bum and pull him against her as he did his level best to angle himself to stop her feeling just how hard he was and how badly he wanted her. He stopped trying and pulled her against his hardness when the kisses stopped being enough and hands began to delve under clothes. They were still standing on the doormat, still wearing their damp coats, and hadn't even got in the house properly.

"Hey" He took a deep breath and made a huge effort to calm things down as he helped her off with her wet parka and slung it over the coat stand by the door "Come on, let's get in and get a drink or something, I'll open some wine and we'll organise some food, what do you want to eat?"

"Not very hungry" She giggled and wound her arms back round his neck, her fingers tangling in his curls as she pulled his head down towards hers to kiss him again, seriously testing his resolve not to drag her straight off up the stairs to bed "And I've given up booze"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your kind reviews – Sorry they didn't get as far as his birthday in this chapter – but the chapter was getting too long. Chapter 12 – I promise. Hope you all have a nice weekend.**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**For The Good Times**_

"Normally I'd be saying I'm bloody glad to hear it, you might decide to marry the fucking paperboy next time, but you might want to wait until after tomorrow, believe me we're going to need alcohol, well, I know I will"

"What about tomorrow? I thought your birthday was Sunday"

"Who told you it was my birthday Sunday, how did you know?"

"Course I know when's your birthday, medics need to know these things" Molly raised her eyebrows and giggled "So I might just possibly have looked up your file, once, maybe, for a bit of checking, research or some'ing, you know we have to know all about …. stuff ….. and anyhow it was a long time ago now so I can't remember exactly why" She pulled as much of an innocent wide-eyed look as she could manage, aiming for 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' and then giggled again as his eyebrows shot up and he smirked "And sometimes we just remember things don't we? I don't know why but little things that don't matter that much just stick ….. like when it's your birthday, so what's happening tomorrow, why you might gonna need to get ratted?"

"We're going to a party, well I have to and you're going to come with me aren't you? to hold my hand"

"A birthday party? Shit Charles, I dunno 'bout that, it feels ….. previous, me turning up at your birthday party. It's a long way to Bath …. 'n then I'd have to stop the night and I'm not sure I'm ready to see your mum and dad, and I'm bloody sure they won't be ready to see me, so we'll do some'ing another time, what do you want for your birthday anyway?"

"No, it's at my cousin's in Streatham and it's not for my birthday, it's a housewarming that just happens to be the day before my birthday and" He totally ignored what she'd said about Bath or meeting his parents again "I want you to come with me"

"Housewarming? Dunno … sounds a bit shit, and a bit sort of grown up, am I gonna be the youngest person there?"

"Without a shadow of a doubt" He laughed "And the most beautiful and the funniest and the sexiest …. and they are all going to be so bloody jealous" He laughed again "And you just asked what I want for my birthday and that's what I want, I want you to come to Shelley's with me, apart from anything else it'll stop her eating me alive"

"What? Your cousin fancies you?"

"No of course not, I meant it'll stop her and the rest of them interrogating me on behalf of my mother as to when I'm going to find a nice girl and settle down"

"A nice girl? Well that bloody rules me out then dunnit?…. If I go with you and I'm not sayin' I will, I'll need to buy a pot plant or some'ing, I can't go to someone's house _warming_ empty handed"

"Nope, she'd only kill it" He snorted "And not only are you the most beautiful girl I know, but you're also the nicest one as well, and the kindest and you're almost as nice as you are sexy, in fact you're fucking awesome"

"Alright, that's enough bullshit, if you overdo it I definitely won't come with you"

"Good, and you needn't worry about taking anything because I've already got the wine so we'll just give her that and a couple of straws and she'll be happy"

He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose, not even bothering to try and disguise the blaze of triumph in his eyes and the smirk at getting what he wanted. He was now sure that despite what she'd said about not being sure he knew she would go with him to a gathering that he'd been dreading ever since he'd found that he'd apparently agreed to go. An evening that had now turned into something to look forward to instead of something he'd been doing his best to find a good excuse to let him wriggle out of it.

"Now what are we going to eat?"

He was scrabbling around in a drawer, eventually finding and waving a bunch of takeaway menus in the air "Do you want me to choose for you?"

"Can do if you like"

"Bloody hell, you've changed your tune"

"Told you, I'm not very hungry 'n if you're the one chooses it'll be all your fault if I don't eat it, I can say it's not me wasting food but you making a crap choice"

"Pizza it is then"

"Don't pull that face, if you don't want that, tell me what you do want then?"

"What and spoil the fun? Pizza will be good, not one of them horrible meaty ones though"

She wanted to say that she had meant what she'd said, that she really wasn't hungry and that she didn't want anything to eat, she just wanted him to take her upstairs to bed and to stop bloody messing, that this was not at all how she'd envisaged the evening progressing from when they'd stood still in their wet coats and dripping on the bloody doormat. Maybe Lisa was right and she had been getting a bit ahead of herself.

"Can we talk about something else now or I might lose my appetite for meaty pizza as well"

"Oh you didn't?"

"Nope, you're right I didn't"

She looked around as Charles faffed about and tried to sort out the fire and wondered what it was with men and lighting fires, not Dave of course, he couldn't be arsed, miles preferred to flick on the one bar electric one "I can see it's a nice place you've got 'ere"

"What, you like it? I'm shocked, I thought you'd hate it"

"Nah, why would I? Well …. yeah sorry, I s'pose I do a bit, sorry"

She could see that whoever had done the tarting up, and she didn't think it was him, had got very busy with the Kirstie sledgehammer and had knocked down most of the walls so that it was now one big room with stairs across the middle separating the sitting room bit which had the sofas and the fireplace from the kitchen bit at the back with its double doors out onto the dark garden. There was no fire lit of course, Charles was struggling to get it going so that it felt chilly and empty, and really a bit shit as the rain hammered against the windows and he got up and shut the wooden blinds which Molly thought were bloody hideous, she really thought the room could do with some nice cosy curtains. Being his, it was very tidy of course with its plain wood floors and the big cream rug and sofas which she vowed not to stand or sit anywhere near when she had red wine in her hand, if and when she decided she hadn't really given up booze forever. There were no pictures or anything, just everything plain and shiny and bare, even the work tops in the kitchen were empty except for the kettle and the Nespresso thingy, not even any crumbs, so that it was probably the most horribly un-cosy place she'd ever been in her life.

"I shouldn't 'ave said that should I? It was a bit bleeding rude, but where's all your stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"Your photos, and pictures 'n cushions 'n that, your _stuff"_

"I haven't got any, except for what's back in Bath" He tucked his tongue in his cheek and smirked, and tried very hard not to laugh out loud. He was almost smug about how right he'd been "I knew you'd hate it"

"Well it's not my house"

"Nope, not mine either, I just rent it"

He laughed again at the expression that flitted across her face. He'd known instinctively that she wouldn't like it, that the whole place was about as far from saying _Molly_ as it was possible to get, although looking back now he wasn't entirely sure if that was what had persuaded him to rent it in the first place.

-OG-

"What are you trying to do to me? That dress is distracting to say the least, I think we'll just stay in after all"

"Nah, we won't, we're going to a party, you had your chance last night"

She giggled and pulled the skirt of her stretchy, black, tight and very _short_ dress down over her bottom while trying to look as if she was joking, was teasing him, although it had wrankled a tiny bit that he hadn't pounced. They'd talked for hours and she'd done her best to reassure him about Adam, as well as reassuring herself because Lisa's words had been ringing in her ears. She'd been so sure that the evening was going to end with her in his bed but it hadn't so she'd been forced to accept that he wanted to take things a bit slowly, but had been a bit glad that she hadn't had clean knickers and her toothbrush sticking out her pocket.

"You scrub up well, I've never seen you in a suit before, 'ave I? You look …. dead smart … and dead grown up"

"What's that supposed to mean? That I look old?"

"You are old" Molly laughed "You will be tomorrow anyway"

"Better make the most of tonight then, hadn't I?"

"Told you, too late, you blew your chance yesterday"

The party was in full swing when they finally got there, late because of the difficulty in finding a taxi driver prepared to take them all the way to south London so that Molly had suggested they went by train knowing that wouldn't happen as Charles' stubborn streak made him more and more determined and more and more angry with himself for not pre-booking. He'd turned into Boss man at his very worst, so that she'd stopped looking forward to any of it by the time they got there.

Charles had put a reassuring hand in the small of her back as he started introducing her to hordes of what looked to her to be middle-aged people, the men all wearing suits like Charles although in her opinion none of them looked as good in theirs as he did in his and the girls were mostly like her in little black dresses, although none of their dresses were as little as hers. Once again Molly had the feeling of being completely wrongly dressed for something as she pinned her most confident smile on her face knowing that she was attracting quite a lot of sideways looks from the other women. The high ceilinged room was almost empty of furniture and was packed with people drinking and shouting over the music as they all tried to make themselves heard above all the other people doing the exact same thing and someone kept on turning up the volume on the music. It was posh, well-spoken bedlam.

"So, how long have you known him then? My ugly little cousin over there"

Shelley, Charles' cousin was a hell of a lot older than him and hadn't been one of the girls giving her funny looks as she now waved her glass in Charles general direction and slopped wine all over herself in the process.

"Couple of years, I've known him a while"

Shelley was obviously completely out of it, either on booze or judging from the state of her pupils, on a mixture of a lot of wine and some illegal substance or other and if her puzzled face was anything to go by she'd forgotten immediately what it was she'd asked, she seemed unsure what the fuck Molly was even talking about as she slurped a great gulp of wine out of the biggest wine glass Molly had ever seen. Shelley was already having huge difficulty focusing so that Molly badly wanted to giggle, being on the sober moral high ground was such a great feeling and was so unusual that it made a really nice change. It wasn't even 9 o'clock which meant Shelley was going to feel bleeding horrible in the morning, if not before and when Molly looked around she could see that their hostess wasn't the only one by a long way. Housewarming would appear to be some posh euphemism for having a get together with your closest friends and family, which in Shelley's case seemed to be about 150 of them at least, and then for everyone to do their fucking best to drink one another under the table as fast as they could, so it was obvious now why Charles had said they would need alcohol.

He was putting the world to rights in an apparently serious arm waving conversation with some bloke whose name she had been told but had now forgotten, but every so often he would turn to look over at her and mouth 'okay?' to just make sure that she was still alright. It made her feel unbelievably happy when he did stuff like that … it made her feel …. safe … and loved.

"Stop it"

She put her hands behind her and pulled his up to rest on her waist from where they were on her bum and making her skirt ride up so that she was attracting even more attention, mainly from men this time, as they danced or rather swayed together in the three square feet of floor space they'd been able to carve out of the crush.

"Stop what?"

"Showing my arse to the room"

"Sorry … tell you what, shall we go?"

"Now? I mean I'd love to … but we can't can we, not yet, be a bit bloody rude cos we haven't been 'ere long enough ….. 'ave we?"

"In case _you_ hadn't noticed they're all pissed so they won't notice if we go and they won't care even if they do notice"

He smirked as he took her hand and dragged her behind him towards the small room off the hallway where there was a huge heap of coats to burrow through to find theirs.

"Come on, I'm tired of sharing you, and it's my birthday in an hour so I'm allowed to do as I like"

"Are you pissed?"

"Nope … well, not very, I don't get pissed, I just get a bit ….. happy"

"Are you happy?"

"Very"

Getting a Uber home was one hell of a lot easier than getting one into town had been earlier, although Molly had the feeling that it might have been cheaper to buy the bloody car, but Charles didn't seem to care as he wrapped his arms round her and prepared to spend the whole journey kissing her and nuzzling at her neck. Instead of which he found himself forced to listen politely to their driver, who was apparently pre-disposed to chat to his customers and was determined to give them his opinion on politics, the weather and Donald Trump's election victory, all of which Charles answered in polite and non-committal monosyllables…

-OG-

The journey had lasted several lifetimes when they eventually stumbled up the slippery path in the rain, then for the second evening in a row fell through the front door, arms still wrapped tightly around each other as he kicked the door shut and bent his head to kiss her. He'd meant it to be soft and gentle, he'd had every intention of taking things slowly and of building bridges, of putting things right and showing her that he wasn't rushing her, but all that vanished the minute she wove her arms round his neck pushed her fingers into his hair and fitted her body against his.

"Is this make-up sex?"

"Bloody hope so" He swung her up in his arms ready to carry her upstairs, then stopped "I don't know, is it?"

"Might be ….. but only if you put me down, I don't want you putting your back out do I? Gotta be careful at your a …"

"Right you're going to pay for that"

And then the laughter was over as he took her hand and pulled her behind him up the stairs, throwing his jacket at the sofa and missing and then leaving it in a crumpled heap on the floor.

In a lot of ways it was like coming home and yet in other ways as if it was all brand new. His body was as she remembered it, hard against where she was soft so that he fitted her so well, or maybe it was that she fitted him as he stroked his hand down her back and then ran his fingers through her hair pulling her tighter and tighter against him as the kisses got deeper and harder and their tongues stroked against each. He stopped kissing her long enough to pull her dress over her head and followed it by removing her bra and the even smaller scrap of black lace of her knickers and felt as her tiny fingers struggled to undo the buttons on his shirt, so put his hand down to help, and then shrugged it off and threw it on the floor.

"You're making a mess"

"Shut up"

"That's what you'd say to me"

"I'll stop and tidy up if you like"

"Nah, you're alright"

Every single bit of her body felt alive as if it was humming as she lay back feeling him press her against him. It was as if he couldn't get close enough or kiss her deeply enough, as if he needed to feel all of her and to lose himself in her as she squirmed and whimpered and fumbled at the buckle on his belt and struggled to undo it so that he put his hands down and helped her, then dropped them over the side of the bed so that they too fell in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Her head was full of the memory of the number of times he'd managed to make her come by kissing her breasts and nibbling and sucking and tonguing her stiffly peaked nipples so that she moved against him to encourage him to move his hands over the rest of her body otherwise she was going to show him exactly what a pushover for him she was. As she pushed his boxers off with her heels, she gave a little shout of triumph when she managed to get them down far enough to release his erection so that she could wrap her fingers round him and make him groan and hiss as she teased with her lips and hands until he was hovering over her as she arched upwards to meet him and then encouraged him to go harder and deeper and faster, grinding herself against him until they were both covered in a faint sheen of sweat and were muttering and panting and pleading with one another not to stop as a lot of remembered and forgotten sensation flooded her body with fireworks. As she screamed his name he buried his head in her neck and let his pleasure rock his world.

Aware of his weight he rolled off her slightly and tucked the warm little body that still felt and smelled exactly as he remembered into his side, the way he always used to so that she was laying against him with her head burrowed under his chin where she fitted perfectly the way she always had. Their breathing and their heart rates both slowly went back to normal as the mingled sweat dried on their bodies and he pulled the duvet up around them.

"Thank you"

She giggled as she said it, breathing the words out and kissing his neck where she could reach without having to move her head.

"You're welcome"

"Not the duvet Numpty"

"Oh, trust me, the pleasure was all mine" He laughed as he heard her murmur 'nah, not all yours' "And that was the nicest birthday present anyone could ever have given me … hey, where are you going …. And what the fuck is that?"

"Going to the loo ….. and that ….. that's a tattoo, told you I did some shit stuff back then, didn't I?"

"What is it? Let me see" He examined the emoji on her bum "It's lovely, I just thought for a minute it might be my name"

"Did you? Why would I wanna do something like that? Would have been a bit bloody awkward to explain when I found someone else, wouldn't it? And yeah, I might just possibly have been a tiny bit plastered, but I hadn't totally lost me mind, I mean you might be very sweet 'n that, but well, you know …." She shrugged then giggled.

"Sweet? Me? No-one's ever accused me of that before"

"I think you are … sometimes"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your feedback, I have spent so much time deleting, editing and re-writing bits of this as I try not to make it too tacky that I have decided to go with it, it's either that or scrap it completely and start all over again, keeping it firmly above the navel. Please be kind - Chapter 13 soon.**_


	13. Chapter 13

They'd dropped off to sleep wrapped round each other but although she was still sleeping peacefully he'd woken for the third time as the wind made the rain hit the window like machinegun fire as well as made the blind rattle from the slightly open fanlight. He hated sleeping in stuffy unventilated places because it meant he woke with a muzzy head, but was wondering whether he should get up and close it in case it disturbed her. The sound of the weather outside was making the sensation of cosy warmth in the bed even more appealing, although having her cuddled up with her back pressed against his chest was making it very difficult to just ignore the erection that didn't seem to be subsiding which certainly wasn't helping him get back to sleep ….

On and off over the past year and a bit he'd dreamed of nights like this and the dreams hadn't always been visions of her warm and willing body wrapped around his, although that wasn't unheard of, but often it had been more about the comfort he got from her sleeping next to him, the feel of her small warm body and the soft sound of her breathing, the way that her being there banished the loneliness that he didn't admit to, not even to himself. The dreams always ended the same way of course, with him waking to an empty space on the pillow next to his and having to remind himself that this was the way he'd wanted it, that he'd found emotional involvement messy and hard to cope with, so had decided to be alone.

And then suddenly everything had changed. Purely by chance the girl who'd made him happier than anyone else ever had, even in the earliest days of his time with Rebecca, had come back into his life, this girl with her way of _looking_ at him had got under his bloody skin again, something that had been inevitable as soon as he'd seen her, and right now he wanted nothing more than for her to stay. But he also knew that she was very young, or that he was far too old so that even Shelley, who'd been totally wasted, had noticed how young she was and had said something, he couldn't remember exactly what now, but then he and Molly had danced and she'd put her arms round his neck as he rested his hands on her arse, until she'd told him off, and he'd stopped caring about what anyone else thought in that almost forgotten surge of happiness of being with her, of her being with him.

One thing that wasn't going to happen was that she refused point blank to go to Bath with him for his birthday tea, she'd insisted that his parents had to know she was back in his life before she went anywhere near, so that he wished he'd kept his mouth shut about his father had said _._ The thought of seeing Sam later in the day bought a smile to his face as he stared at nothing in the dark and thought about how three months is a bloody long time and that he'd missed him, and that he was looking forward to seeing his mother and father as well, but it just would have been nice if she'd been going with him, but even when she'd been half laying on him in the glow of mutual satisfaction the previous night, or earlier that morning, she'd been adamant, had shaken her head and declared that it wasn't going to happen no matter how much he went on at her, that when she'd said she'd do anything for him, she'd meant it, she would … just not that.

He was still struggling to keep a lid on the jealousy and resentment he felt towards the unknown Adam. They'd talked for hours about their lives when they'd been apart, about his return from injury and how PTSD had made things difficult for a while and his slow recovery from it and she'd talked about Vegas, chewing at her bottom lip and staring at him with eyes huge with anxiety as he'd done his best to keep his feelings of frustrated anger hidden behind a vague smile. She'd told him how initially she'd been convinced that he, this Adam, was a fucktard but that he'd grown on her over the months and that by the end she liked him, was fond of him, but she didn't love him and he wasn't really her husband. She'd almost put her hand on her heart to convince him that they were not now nor ever had been lovers, and he believed her, mainly because he wanted to. But that didn't mean he didn't find it difficult and although he didn't intend to allow his jealous controlling streak to take over so that he risked losing her, it didn't stop him hating the thought that she'd married someone else and he couldn't help wishing she still thought of this Adam as a fucktard.

"Happy Birthday"

She stirred and stretched although judging by the huskiness of her sleep-filled voice she wasn't fully awake as she shuffled backwards and pressed the soft swelling of her bum against the rigid insistence of his erection that was getting more and more difficult for him to ignore, but he hadn't woken her deliberately, at least he didn't think he had.

"Sorry, did I wake you?"

He lifted her heavy hair and began to kiss her across the back of her neck, nuzzling tiny nibbling little kisses and inhaling the familiar smell of her skin and shampoo. He didn't know what it was scented with but doubted it was expensive because for as long as he'd known her she'd always said she didn't do expensive stuff, or as she'd put it, all that pricey shit was a waste of money, that _clean_ did her, but it was a smell that was Molly as far as he was concerned.

"Yeah, well some'ing did" She sniggered and moved her bum against him making him groan "And you don't sound very sorry ….. Happy Birthday Bossman"

"Thank you ….. don't call me that, you know I hate it, it's just …. please, not Bossman, oh and not Sir either, it puts me off"

"Sorry ….. Nah, it does NOT, stop telling lies, I hadn't noticed anything put you off ….. Sir"

She was still laughing but her voice had dropped to more of a flirtatious whisper as he moved his hands round to cup her breasts and began to rub his thumbs slowly backwards and forwards over her nipples, loving the way they reacted to his touch and the way her breathing changed, getting shallower and faster as he nuzzled at the skin under her ear and she began to squirm against his erection, her back still firmly pressed against his chest. She smirked as he rolled her over to look into her face while keeping his own completely straight, chewing at his bottom lip until without saying another word he moved to hold her hands captive over her head. Still without saying anything he hovered with his lips just a fraction away from her mouth and then muttered 'shut up, you talk too much' before laughing and teasing her with a feather light brush of his lips across hers.

As soon as he touched her lips and let go of her hands she buried her fingers in his curls to stop him pulling away again so he stopped teasing and closed the gap between them, kissing her over and over and deeper and harder until both of them were struggling to breathe and she was writhing under him. But it was when she pushed him over onto his back and moved to straddle him that, he came to his senses slightly and tried to slow her down, to stop her and wrest back some control because he was no longer sure that he had any at all.

"Stop bleeding fighting me"

"Molly, I can't, I'm not going to be able to last …."

"I know"

The soft voice and the wrinkled little nose, together with the low chuckle as she got her own way meant he had to focus on every holding back technique he'd ever known, as she did _her_ very best to make it impossible for him. She was grinding down slowly and steadily with her muscles clenched around him until he was muttering, pleading with her to wait, to stop for a minute … to wait out ….. but she didn't, she simply shook her head so that her hair fell over her face and kept on moving. It was an embarrassingly short passage of time for him before he simply couldn't stop the tidal wave of pleasure that had been building and that was now overwhelming him as he put his hands on her hips and held her tightly down, forgetting everything else in his need to arch his back and bury himself even deeper as he shouted her name, his voice reverberating off the walls.

Her face was wreathed in a triumphant smirk as she watched him. She loved the look on his face and the way he'd called out and when it was over, the smile on his lips and in his eyes as, still straddling him, she put both her hands up and tucked her hair behind her ears before leaning forward and kissing him gently on the lips, and murmured "Happy Birthday"

-OG-

"Charles, I've been thinking"

She lifted her chin off his chest and tried to move her head enough to see his face as he tucked the duvet over them. Charles was warm and happy and wonderfully drowsy but she was wide awake and had already informed him in a serious tone of voice that she'd forgotten just how bloody good he was at 'wake-up' sex and had started laughing which in turn had made him laugh, but it also made him blush, something which felt ridiculously embarrassing when you're supposed to be a tough army Captain. He was glad it was too dark for her to see him clearly, she would have teased the life out of him if she knew.

"Oh God, that sounds dangerous"

"And that sounds like you should get a new scriptwriter, mate"

"Sorry, what were you been thinking?"

"Wondering whether this" She pulled her arm out from where he'd tucked the duvet over her and waved her arm around "I know this sounds a bit shit, but I need to know ….….. I mean, us, you and me, like this, does this mean that we're back together, or is it just …. Truth ?"

"What do you mean, truth? … Of course we are, I thought so but that's only if it's what you want, you have to say if it's not"

"Nah, you're alright, it is what I want" Molly smirked her relief in the dark as she snuggled herself back under the duvet and put her arm back across him.

"Did you enjoy yourself last night?"

"That was early this morning, but yeah, why? didn't you?"

"I'm not talking about that, God, you've got a one-track mind haven't you?"

"Nah ….. okay, yeah, well maybe, which bit of last night was you talking 'bout then?"

"The party, I already knew you enjoyed the rest"

"Might of lied"

"Nope don't think so, so what did you think of Shelley?"

"She's alright, quite nice really ….. for a piss artist and a ….. smack head" She thought for a moment "Got a lot of friends hasn't she? Either that or she put it on Facebook"

"I wouldn't put it past her and she probably wouldn't remember doing it if she had, I've got no idea who all those bloody people were or where they came from, and I don't think she did either, but Shelley has always been a bit …. _different,_ and you're right about her smoking something illegal, you didn't go in the bloody kitchen did you? God, it smelled like an opium den in there, but whatever you do, don't tell my bloody mother, she'll be on the phone to Shelley's before you can say it's none of her fucking business. I know Shelley's old enough to run her own life, I know that, you know that, Shelley knows that, but my mum and her sister do enjoy playing this lovely game of one-upmanship about their kids. Mum would like nothing better than to get on the phone to my aunt and pretend she's shocked and appalled, but in fact she'd love every fucking minute of it"

"I'm not going to see your mum, am I?"

"Shit, I wish you'd come with me, we'll have birthday cake, might even be chocolate"

"What no jelly and ice cream?"

"Yep, probably, and you might even get a balloon to take home"

"I can't, not even for cake and a balloon, I said, didn't I?"

"I was hoping to change your mind"

"What, with a bowl of jelly and ice cream? Anyway aren't you a bit old for all that shit? Oi get off …. stop it … you wanna be careful, you'll strain some'ing"

"Will you stop bloody complaining I'm too old"

"I never said you was too old, 32 isn't that old, I know that, and you're still a fully whatsit sold…. …..… I said stop it, you don't need to keep on proving it"

"Cheeky little mare, I don't have to prove anything, but then, if you can't cope … well ….just say the word, I'll understand"

She was dotting his chest with kisses where he'd tugged her over to lay completely on top of him both of them laughing, but despite the fact he'd been struggling to stifle jaw-cracking yawns which had been making his eyes water and in spite of them already having had sex twice in the last few hours and her constant reminders of his age, or maybe because of them, his pride was demanding that he showed her he still had an enviable recovery rate.

"Sod off, I am sorry, you know I don't mean it, I'm just teasing but really I can't go to Bath, I wanna go and see me mum, I sorta promised, cos of being on tour 'n that, and she'll be upset if I don't go … sorry"

"No, I'm sorry, of course you want to go home and see your mum, and I expect they'll be looking forward to seeing you as well"

He was struggling to keep his eyes open as she tucked her head into the crook of his neck and listened to his breathing change as he drifted off to sleep. She was actually happy about it, she would far rather he went to sleep for a bit because the last thing she wanted was to talk about her family and whether or not they'd have missed her when she was off on tour. It was highly bleeding unlikely, considering she hardly ever saw them even when she was just living a few miles up the road. It had been a very long time since Molly had considered the maisonette in east Ham as home.

-OG-

"Morning beautiful … God, what time is it?"

His voice was thick with sleep as he pulled himself upright and folded his arms behind him to rest his head against the headboard and smiled as she carefully put the cup of Rosabaya on the bedside table. She'd tried it once to please him, but had thought it was bitter and disgusting and had hated it, but the smell always made her stomach disappear like in a fast lift. It reminded her of first thing in the morning in the FOB and the times she'd woken up next to him during their short spell together in Bath when, as a general rule, he was awake long before she was.

"It's nearly eight o'clock, 'n some of us 'ave been up for hours"

"Have you?"

"Nah"

She leaned to one side and sipped at her tea and successfully evaded the arm that had shot across the bed to try and pull her back into it with him.

"Nice shirt you're wearing"

She looked down at the crumpled blue shirt which she'd picked up off the floor together with his suit which she'd hung up, all ready to show off about how she'd tidied up after him for a change.

"Yeah, I thought so, had a bit of a lend off some bloke whose mummy'll probably buy him a new one for his birthday, though maybe should of asked first, probably, but he was snoring and I thought, nah, he won't mind"

"I don't snore, and no I don't mind, you can steal any of my clothes you like, they look better on you anyway, but just don't stick them in a charity bag when you've finished with them, and don't say that about my _mummy_ buying me a shirt either" He pretended to shudder "What are you doing up? Take the shirt off and come back to bed, or better still leave it on and come back to bed" He raised his eyebrows and pretended to leer hopefully "It's still my birthday"

"I know, but it needed a bit of a tidy up in 'ere, it was like a tsunami had been through, mess all over" She grinned then giggled as she quoted his own words back at him "I'm hungry, had a bit of a butchers but all I could find was bloody bird seed, and that hamster food shit, you obviously wasn't expecting me, no coco-pops and not even any Nutella to put on your toast neither"

"I'm sorry, I haven't really stocked up yet, but that hamster food is good for you" He laughed at the way she rolled her eyes "I'll get up in a minute and go and get some pain au choolat"

"Good, I'm not fussy, anything chocolate will do, don't matter what sort it is"

"God, chocolate for breakfast …. only you"

-OG-

"Will I see you later when I get back?"

"Dunno, I might stop over me mum's tonight, call me when you're back, and drive careful …. oh 'n have a nice birthday"

"I've already had a nice birthday"

"Good … I thought that too"

"Good, glad to hear it" He got out of the car and walked round to open her door for her "Look, I can easily take you to your mum's first, before I go"

"Nah, I can just as easy get the train, but I need to hurry up else I'm gonna miss it, go on, piss off"

"Lovely"

She had inevitably missed the train so that she now had to stand for ages on a freezing cold platform waiting for the next one and cursing the Sunday service as she stamped her feet up and down and tried to restore her circulation and tucked her icy cold fingers into the sleeves of her parka and the soft warmth of the sweater she'd _borrowed_ to put over her dress. She couldn't help wishing her dress was a hell of a lot longer, the wind was freezing her arse off as she stood on the deserted platform and tried to switch her thoughts off.

Nan had always been spot on when she'd said Molly spent too much time _thinking,_ she meant she mithered too much about stuff, and Molly knew she was right, but it was hard not to. She'd wanted him back so badly and had thought about little else for weeks, well, she'd never really stopped wanting him so she should by rights be on top of the bleeding world right now, should be hugging and kissing perfect strangers, if there were any about, instead of which she was a tiny bit miserable. She hated that they'd only been back together for a day and a bit and she'd already lied to him twice … and he hadn't said that he loved her. She loved him, she had no doubts about that …. but she couldn't possibly say it to him before he said it to her … he was the one wanted out last time, the one who told her to sod off, so it could be he was just pretending he wanted her back.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Decided that it was still his birthday – thank you all for reviewing and being so kind – please keep telling me that you are still following, because , you know me, the more I think, the more paranoid I get. Chapter 14 sees the planning of Xmas chez Dawes and Molly starts to sort out some of her insecurities …..**_

"Bloody think not


	14. Chapter 14

"Come on Adam, stop being an arse and let me in, it's bleeding taters out 'ere"

Fuck, she had been going to tell him but now it was bleeding obvious that he already knew, big gob Lisa had obviously beaten her to it, why the fuck hadn't she rung him yesterday? She'd meant to, but then forgotten, her mind had been on other stuff, shit. She might of known that Lisa would have rushed to tell him like shit off a shovel. Bollocks.

"What, lover boy not with you?"

"Nah, come on, I'm gonna catch me bleeding death out 'ere"

"Where is he then, gone home to …..where is it now? Windsor bloody Castle?"

"Course, how did you know? Tell you what I could 'ave gone with him if I'd wanted, wish I had now … but no, bleeding Muppet me, I thought I'd come and see you instead, you gonna let me in or shall we keep talking through this bleeding thing 'n then all the sodding neighbours can join in?"

She'd been putting off doing what she'd said she was going to do and had instead found herself walking up the High Street to the flat. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her mum, or the rest of them come to that, even if she didn't want to spend hours listening to her dad telling her what a loser she was and how she fucked it all up again and it wasn't even true that she didn't think of it as home, she did, sort of, they'd always be her bloody family, even though she'd never really felt like they were there for her, as the Smurfoid would have said.

It was the thought of telling them about the fucking mess she'd made of …. well everything, of Adam and then telling them about Charles ….. all made her blood run cold. She had to come up with some sort of explanation, which served her right of course, she should have thought it through and told the bleeding truth in the first place, but that was being wise after the event and she hadn't, god knows why now, and she didn't know where to start, or what the actual fuck she was going to say to get out of Christmas either. Going on her own was one way, but then she'd most likely have to spend the whole time listening to them going on and on about how lovely Adam was, and how stupid she was, anyhow she wanted to spend it with Charles, obviously, but just as obviously not in Bath again if she had anything to do with it. She couldn't imagine taking him to east Ham with her either. That was simply not going to happen. Maybe they could spend it at his place in Ash, they could have spaghetti with sauce from a jar or a stir fry for Christmas dinner. Not going to happen either, not with him having Sam to think about.

The journey to Guildford had been the usual for a Sunday, bloody tedious and she was now wishing she'd gone back to barracks instead and put her head down for a couple of hours, caught up on her sleep and then she could have called her mum later when she'd be more _up to it_ but she was here now and she did need to sort her shit that was still cluttering his place, and anyway she had wanted to tell him herself about being back with Charles. She felt like she owed him that much, bloody Lisa and her big gob.

There was a long silence as Molly stood and waited, stamping her cold feet on the pavement and struggling to keep her gob shut, it was getting harder and harder to keep a hold of her temper. She was very cold and very tired and very fed up with the whole shitty bastarding mess. Why had she lied? And she was horribly guilty that she hadn't been up front and honest with Charles either about where she was heading and at the way Adam was keeping her outside on the bloody pavement so that people were _looking,_ it looked like she was trying to flog him religion or something.

She would have told Charles about her stuff being in Adam's flat and about needing to see about it, but it didn't matter how much he'd said he wasn't bothered about him, she didn't quite believe him anymore, not like she had at first. She'd been so relieved she'd taken what he'd said at face value, had believed it because she wanted to believe it, until Lisa had said all that stuff and then her and Charles had had a bit of a chat and she'd seen the way he looked at the floor when she was telling him and the way his voice had gone all … careful …. and she'd realised that he didn't think it was as funny as he'd made out.

Adam eventually pushed the buzzer and let her in and had opened the front door of the flat but he'd disappeared inside somewhere so that Molly stood in the hall outside and rapped on the frame with her knuckles and called out, wondering whether it would be ….. okay if she just waltzed in and shouted for him to stick the kettle on, pretended that it was still the same as it had been before. It weren't so long ago she'd have just used the keys that were lurking somewhere in the crap at the bottom of her bag with the used bus tickets and old receipts and the crumpled tissues with loads of furry fruit pastilles stuck on them, she would have just let herself in and wouldn't even have thought of using the entry-phone thing in the first place, but doing that felt all wrong now somehow. And anyway she couldn't just bowl in, Adam might have been _entertaining._

"Look, it weren't like you didn't know about me and him, and I didn't know he was gonna be out there at the same time as me did I? Or that, you know, we'd get back together or …. and that didn't happen till we got home …. 'n I don't know why I'm telling you all this, do I? Come on Adam, it's not like you to get all shitty with me is it? Well, it is…" She raised her eyebrows and giggled at him "But, not over this, I mean, it's not like you and me …. I know I should of sorted moving me stuff out by now, but I've only been back couple of days and I've been a bit busy …. 'n I need to shut up now don't I?"

"Yeah, anyone ever told you, you talk too much?"

"Sorry, only when I'm upset"

It had been a huge relief to find Adam in the kitchen putting tea bags in two mugs even though he kept his back turned as he waited for the kettle to boil and then even more of a relief when he looked back over his shoulder and grinned his trademark goofy grin, the one that told her that whatever it was had got up his nose had gone. This was the Adam she knew and …. loved .. he didn't get arsey with anyone about anything, he was too nice, or too lazy, to get a cob on for long.

"You're right, it is none of my fucking business, spent too much time listening to that gobby mate of yours in the bar last night, I see you did the walk of shame this morning, good night last night was it?"

He nodded his head towards what he could see of her short black dress with Charles' sweater over it as she hung her parka on the door knob. She'd lived with Adam long enough for him to know her wardrobe, and that she was wearing her best 'dressy' dress, or in fact her only 'dressy' dress.

"Yeah thanks, was, a bit, and sorry about you having Lisa give you earache, it's none of her business" She nodded her thanks at him as he handed her a mug of tea and grinned "We went to a party"

"Dirty little stop out" Adam clinked his mug against hers "Cheers, good party then I take it?"

"Yeah it was"

"Good" He gave her another of wide loopy smiles "Listen, Princess, I know you're a bit pissed at Lisa, …. and I reckon you've got good reason, but don't be mad at me, okay?"

"I'm not, thought it was you was mad at me"

"No, I know you're a bloody hopeless case, and she does care about you, even if hanging around with her gets you into all sorts of stupid shit, and I can see from the look on your gob that you're all loved up. But I know you, I know you'll be careful and that you won't forget he made you fucking miserable last time, so, you'll ….. watch it …. you'll watch yourself … won't you, and you won't let him ….. make things all …. shitty for you again" He shook his head "We don't want any more peach schnapps do we?"

"He's not gonna hurt me again, honest Adam you don't need to worry about it, I can look after meself ….. 'n yeah Lisa is a bit of a bloody liability but she means well …. mostly …. and as for all that other shit, he don't need to know about any of that does he? I 'aven't exactly told him"

"No, why would he need to know about that?"

That night had been a turning point for Molly. The two of them had sat at the kitchen table and sunk a bottle of peach schnapps between them, her half on a stomach containing precisely one handful of Pringles and nothing else so it had seemed like the perfect solution to her misery and loneliness. A whole year had gone since she'd well and truly fucked things up with Charles and here she was still missing him and Adam was ….. there, and she was fond of him and they'd talked for ages about how Charles had most likely moved on. Adam had been surprising well up for it on his half of the bottle, so they'd started having a snog, a snog which would undoubtedly have led to … more … but she'd had to call a halt and stagger to the bathroom to throw up … . And then, when she'd eventually stopped hugging the toilet bowl and had stood up she'd had to hold onto the wall with one hand, shivering and shaking and bathed in cold sweat, she'd found Adam out cold and snoring on the sofa. Feeling like seven shades of shit Molly had crept under the duvet and prayed for a quick death, or at least for the bed to stop shifting itself round and round and up and down.

They had never actually mentioned it again, even when they'd come face to face in the kitchen the following day both ashen-faced and desperate for tea, even if neither of them could guarantee it would stay put. They'd had a sort of unspoken pact to not only never, ever go there again but never to tell anyone about it no matter how ratted they got, the same way that they'd vowed to never, ever touch schnapps again, ever. Although Adam swore blind that the bottle had been in the cupboard for so long it must have gone off and that they were suffering from some form of food poisoning.

"Well he wouldn't but I'd quite like …. Well, think it would be good if you met him, 'n I think he'd like to meet you, so if I bring him to the bar you promise you won't say anything about any of it? I mean not even in a joking sort of way ….?"

"Of course not, and if you hang on a bit I'll work out how much it'll cost you in a min….."

"Fuck off, Patterson" She giggled "You know why Lisa told you don't you?"

"No? Oh no, no, Princess" He stuck his fingers in his ears "Don't pull that face, no, not bloody Lisa, any of your other mates, fine, I could probably give it a …" He shrugged "But not her, she'd drive me round the _fucking_ bend in a week, all the bollocks that comes out of her mouth"

"She fancies you"

"She does not … Oh shit, does she? Fuck"

"Just sayin'"

-OG-

He'd committed a serious breach of the expected norms of polite behaviour as far as his father was concerned by being extremely late for lunch which made the atmosphere between them somewhat frosty to say the least when he'd eventually arrived. His phone call blaming heavy traffic and the road works for his delayed arrival hadn't really cut any ice with someone who prized punctuality as much as his father did, he'd always refer to it as a supreme virtue and was of the opinion that delays were only ever a problem if you didn't leave enough time to allow for the unexpected, leaving early enough was always the answer … His father certainly wouldn't have been impressed if he'd known that Charles had been late setting off because he'd been delayed by his need to take a shower with Molly, and that one thing had somehow led to another and then for some reason the time had sped past …. .

"Sorry Mum, I know I'm late, hope nothing's spoiled" He did a credible impression of the Bisto Kid sniff "Smells good" He nodded at his father who cleared his throat before muttering something about it 'being about time' before he marched off to the dining room to ostensibly check the wine harrumphing to himself and muttering something that could have been, but wasn't necessarily, 'Happy Birthday'.

"Happy birthday son" His mother pecked him on the cheek but then stood holding the front door wide open putting her head out to peer up and down the empty street, she sounded puzzled "On your own?"

"Yup …..why? Who were you expecting? ….. Oh right, Shelley" He snorted "Surprised she can remember to be honest"

"She can't remember your … _friend's …._ name, but from what she said it sounded a lot … well, a lot like … sorry, you don't have to tell me"

"No I know I don't" His teeth were firmly clamped onto his bottom lip drawing it into his mouth as he smiled with affection at his mother and patted her arm before putting his head back and roaring with laughter, knowing that he was annoying the fuck out of her by not telling her what she was dying to know "Come on, what's for lunch? Smells wonderful and I'm starving"

His mother's curiosity had been palpable throughout the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, the apple pie and the coffee so that eventually even his father had noticed and had snapped at her, demanding to know what she was talking about. All her little cryptic comments and pointed remarks betrayed an expectation to her curiosity that Charles had no intention of satisfying until it suited him and he'd decided that the fun had gone out of teasing her.

Seeing Sam had been as fulfilling as he'd expected, his son had made him a card at school which he handed over with an expression on his face as if he'd just handed him the hope diamond and had then stood there with an expectant expression waiting for the admiration and extravagant praise for his artwork, which he got in spades. Once he'd got that out of the way Sam had launched into a barrage of excited chatter falling over his words in his desperate need to _tell_ his dad every little thing that had happened to make him happy or which had been a disaster during the time Charles had been away. He was like a demented little butterfly hopping from one foot to the other and from one topic to the next in his excitement and in a frenzy of _telling_ , but most of what he said just underlined for Charles how much of Sam's life he'd been missing out on, he'd never even heard of most of the people and events his little boy was babbling on about.

Ice cool Rebecca had nodded and handed him a tasteful birthday card before confirming what time she'd be picking Sam up and had gone towards the front door to exit with a glacial nod at his parents before she stopped and asked him whether he was well, it was very obviously an afterthought. He knew the two women really were chalk and cheese which made meaningful comparisons impossible, and that comparisons were odious anyway, but he couldn't remember ever feeling a fraction of the passion coupled with the burning need to protect for the blonde woman in front of him that he had been married to, that was the mother of his child, that he felt for Molly. He wished more than anything she'd let him change her mind for her and that she had come with him.

He'd been well on his way back towards Ash Green when the thought that had been niggling at the back of his mind ever since he'd looked at Rebecca and thought of Molly, had hit him with a vengeance. A big bit of him dismissed it immediately, she wouldn't, but there was still enough doubt niggling away and he didn't know how he felt about it, except that he needed to ask her the first chance he got.

"Hello gorgeous"

"Hello, had a nice birthday?"

"Ohhhhhh yes, I had a … wonderful birthday, thank you for asking"

"Welcome, did you get anything nice?"

"Yup, but I don't think I'd better tell you over the phone, I could come and collect you, it's not that late"

"I meant did your mummy buy you a shirt?" She giggled at the obvious inference in his words "And it is bleeding late, I'm already in bed, it's been a long day what with going to see me mum 'n everything"

"How was she?"

"Fine ….. I think … bit hard to know cos she's not actually speaking to me now, well none of them are"

"Why?"

"Me own fault for lying in the first place, but they didn't take it well, the news about me and Adam I mean, I shouldn't have let them think it was all …."

Her voice petered out as she ran out of words to describe the horror and bewilderment that had greeted her bald statement to her mother that her and Adam were no longer, that they'd got a divorce. She'd taken a deep breath and screwed up her courage and just told her but Belinda hadn't begun to understand which was hardly surprising as Molly couldn't quite bring herself to tell her what had really gone on in Vegas. So her mum had swung between being all tearful and dead sympathetic, sorry for her and being bloody annoyed that she obviously hadn't tried hard enough. She'd kept on saying that he was lovely and that she was sure he would come back if Molly said sorry for whatever it was had upset him, and that it didn't matter whether it was her fault or not. Molly had kept on shrugging and shaking her head which, together with her total lack of remorseful tears, had eventually wound her mum up enough to make her drag the rest of the family into it. Molly had, of course, flounced out and had slammed the door behind her so was now dreading having to make the obligatory phone call to apologise, even if she didn't feel like she had anything to say sorry for, why was she always the one who was in the wrong?

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your ongoing support – I know I've said it before, but it really is what keeps me going. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.**_


	15. Chapter 15

He would have picked Adam out even if there had been a dozen fair haired young blokes serving behind the bar. For early evening on a weekday the wine bar itself was fairly packed with after-work drinkers and as it was the start of the month long raucous forerunners to office Christmas parties where everyone seemed to be intent on getting hammered as quickly as possible so the bar staff were busy but there was something about the sharp way he'd looked up at the door when they'd walked in and the way that his eyes hadn't focussed on Molly but had looked Charles up and down … It had underlined that this was almost certainly the ex-husband, or her very nearly ex, she hadn't actually said the _decree absolute_ was .. absolute …. yet, and somehow he hadn't thought to ask, had just assumed it was. His curiously wary expression as they approached the bar was another giveaway as he nodded an unsmiling acknowledgement of Charles' presence with Molly, his wife, who wasn't really his wife, and who, according to her, never had been.

"Princess" Adam nodded and smiled as he leaned across the bar and pecked her on the cheek then turned to look at Charles as she did her best to hitch her bum up onto a high bar stool. Charles put out a hand and helped her up "So this is … errr ….. ummm ….errrm …. Charles?"

Somehow Charles didn't quite believe in the ' _Your name escapes me for the moment'_ act that Adam had just staged for his benefit but put out a hand for him to shake murmuring 'Yup that's me, nice to meet you Adam' as he did so. Adam grabbed at his hand and gave it a hearty shake, doing his best to crush his bones while Charles smirked to himself and resisted any temptation that he felt to join in with the _let's try and break someone else's fingers_ contest. He knew he didn't need to; there wasn't a shadow of a doubt that it was a contest he would win. He could literally feel the waves of anxiety that were coming off Molly and wished he could put his arm round her to reassure her but hesitated, wondering if it might make him look as if he was making a point, some gesture of triumph, but then did it anyway, resting his hand reassuringly on the nape of her neck as his fingers gently massaged the skin underneath the waterfall of her hair. If this was going to turn into a pissing contest, he was going to win.

"How was Belinda?" Adam turned to look at Charles, a slight disingenuous smile on his face and then looked back at Molly "Alright was she, and the others?" He didn't wait for her to answer him before turning back again with a slight smirk on his face so that Charles got the distinct impression that Adam was _enjoying_ himself "Have you met the Dawes family yet? Interesting bunch, especially her Nan" He turned back to Molly and ignored the look on her face as she gave him her best death stare "Did you tell them about us, about me, all about Vegas? Were they surprised?"

"Adam, tell you what would be really good, if you could stop being an arse now, and nah, course not, but they was bloody glad I'd come to me senses" She shrugged then attempted a giggle while still glowering at him "Could understand why I couldn't wait to see the bleeding back of you … what do you think, moron?"

"Sorry, bit peach schnapps was it? You alright?"

"Fine"

"Have you noticed Charles that when our Molls says 'fine' like that what she really means is 'fuck off and die why don't you'?"

"Adam, shut up, do you see me laughing? You're not being a bit clever ….. or funny"

"Sorry Princess …. didn't mean to upset you … so, is Lisa coming down tonight do you know?"

Charles was looking from one to the other with his professionally impassive mask firmly in place as he tried and failed to read the expressions on their faces, while all the time he kept his hand firmly on the back of her neck. The nuances of the conversation may be escaping him but he could feel the undercurrents between them as Adam served their drinks and then, despite his protests, insisted that they were on the house, an obvious equaliser in the pissing contest as far as Charles was concerned.

Over an hour later and it was almost certainly time to go, he'd had enough and could tell that she was flagging, exhausted from the tension. The friends that had barrelled in earlier, whether by design or coincidence he didn't know, had seemed a reasonable enough bunch who'd all looked pleased to see her and had laughed with her when she'd described in graphic detail all about the camp in Yemen and how the sand had got everywhere, how it had given them all gritty backsides. And her friends had all looked at him with varying degrees of curiosity, had whispered several deeply embarrassing comments which he couldn't help overhearing and which had made her smirk before she'd nodded in agreement with them.

The group also included the Lisa that he'd heard so much about. When they'd first arrived she'd been very quiet and ….. watchful …. as he'd done his best to be polite and pleasant but she'd just looked at him with her eyebrows very slightly raised in a sort of disbelieving sneer as if it was a 'mystery' to her what Molly was doing with him. A blonde girl, reasonably pretty although a bit too sharp featured for his taste, but he'd taken an almost instant dislike to her. He was very aware of the part that this Lisa had played in the debacle that had been Vegas, not all her fault of course, Molly made her own decisions but he didn't much like the way she kept making barbed comments, little pinpricks that were obviously designed to make Molly uncomfortable in the name of teasing, but which were upsetting her. She didn't actually say that she didn't find it funny, but he could tell from the way her shoulders were getting more and more tensed up around her ears whenever Lisa made one of her 'little jokes' at Molly's expense.

-OG-

"Do you want to go soon?"

His breath was warm against her cheek as he bent down and whispered in her ear making all the little hairs shiver. She nodded, she'd been ready to go almost since the very first moment they'd set foot in the sodding place. This had been a mistake, as she'd known it would be ever since she'd first suggested this cosy little get-together in the wine bar, she couldn't think now what the fuck had possessed her to even mention it, let alone to get on and do it.

The last couple of hours had been her idea of a sodding nightmare, first Adam making little comments that were designed to worry Charles. He'd been insinuating that they had a past, which they did of course, just not the one he was trying to imply and the fucker had even mentioned the schnapps which he'd promised he wouldn't but which he obviously thought had somehow got funny now. She'd spent the rest of the time being _worried_ about what the fuck he was going to say next. The girls had all looked at Charles standing there next to her smiling at everyone the way he was and being lovely to everyone with his arm round her and they'd all had their bloody tongue's hanging out, probably the same look as had been on her face the first time she'd clapped eyes on him, except in her case she'd very quickly hated him. But that was then and sometimes she forgot just how bloody gorgeous he was, to her he was just Charles, as they all pulled their ' _raise your eyebrows, open your eyes as wide as they'll go and chew your knuckles'_ faces behind his back. The faces that said ' _I definitely would, lucky, lucky you'_ All except for bloody Lisa of course who'd kept on shaking her head and making crappy little comments that she was pretending were meant to be jokes. She was still trying to show Adam that she was on his side and didn't seem to get it that there weren't any sides and that Adam and her were toast. There were times, and this was one of them, when Lisa needed sorting and Molly had every intention of doing it the next day, there was absolutely no way that bloody Lisa was going to get away with the shit she'd pulled tonight.

"Yeah, thought you'd never ask, let's go"

Their farewells were made against a loud chorus of very ribald comments which made Charles squeeze her shoulders and throw his head back to laugh as she gave them a one-finger salute behind her back and then swung her hips in an exaggerated wiggle as they exited the bar out onto the freezing cold High Street where there were shreds of frosty mist around the street lights.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, bleeding cold out here though innit?" He put his arm round her to try and cuddle her into his side to share the warmth of his body with her "Thank you for …. well, putting up with all that … shit"

"It was fine"

As he said it he remembered with Adam had said about the hidden meaning when she said the same thing, and he could see that Adam had made a fairly accurate assessment, it was something he'd heard her do on many occasions, often with him when she'd first served under him, but he'd meant exactly what he'd said, it was fine.

"I just want you to be happy"

"I am"

Somehow he doubted it, for some reason he didn't quite believe what she'd said.

"But I'm sorry about fuckwit, I mean Adam, well both of them really, Lisa 'n all, and all that shit about me family 'n that, I dunno what he thought he was doing, yeah they like him, but Christ knows what he thought he was trying to prove"

"Hey come on, not your fault, and I'm sure your family will get over it, they just care about you that's all" He'd adopted that calm reasonable adult _Captain_ voice that royally pissed her off "They're your family, they just want what's best for you Dawsey"

"You don't know 'em" She took a deep breath to control the overwhelming urge she had to kick him as they walked down the High Street, he didn't understand, but then why would he, as far as she could recall his family was bloody normal "I know all that, and that you're most likely right, I DO know that Charles, but with my lot ….. best is not what's best for me, best is what they want, and last time I didn't do what they wanted no bugger spoke to me for fucking months" Her voice became all thick and quivery with a mixture of laughter and incipient tears "Sorry …fucking Adam" she took a deep breath "Sorry, can we talk about some'ing else now?" Molly pinned a smile on her face as she nudged him with her elbow. It wasn't his fault, none of it was, not her family behaving like dicks, or bloody Adam being the assistant dick or Lisa being a cow, none of it.

"Of course we can" He smiled down at her "I'm looking forward to getting to know them"

"Who? Me family? Nah, you're not, not gonna happen"

"What? Are you going to keep me hidden away from them for the rest of our lives?" He squeezed her shoulders again as they walked towards where the car was parked "Has to happen sooner or later and I promise I won't show you up, I won't fart when I sit down or get pissed and fall asleep in my dinner"

"Nah, we can leave all that to me dad, I tell you what, let's just see how things go"

Molly wanted to scream, this was getting worse, first he didn't seem to get it that it wasn't him she was ashamed of, and it wasn't her family either, not really, it was just the thought of mixing the two, the thought of him sitting in the front room exchanging points of view on current affairs with Dave was way beyond her imagination. And it was bloody previous and he knew that. Far too soon when they'd only been back together a few days and who knew whether they'd last this time, what would happen if they didn't, if he got pissed off at her again, which was highly possible, because then she'd be back to east Ham with her tail between her legs needing to explain how it had all gone to shit again. No thanks.

-OG-

He pulled up outside his house and turned the engine off, then swivelled to look at her in the sudden silence without saying anything. Their journey home had been conducted in the sort of speechless silence that gets hard to break after a bit and anyway she couldn't think what to say. She wouldn't have been at all surprised if he'd taken her straight back to barracks, instead of which he leaned across and stroked her face with one finger before tucking her hair behind her ear.

It struck warm when he stood back to let her into the house in front of him, although she wasn't sure whether that was the heat that was being given off by the log burner even though its doors were closed or whether it was that the three or four glasses of wine she'd necked had caught up with her. She'd turned down his invitation on the night of his birthday and had been almost proud of herself that she'd done it, well for about five nano-seconds after they'd said their goodnights and he'd gone. But she'd badly needed a hug and if she hadn't been being so bloody stubborn she would have loved him to come and pick her up, well, if it hadn't meant getting up and getting dressed and skulking past the knowing smirks on the faces of the bored lads on guard, but even all of that wouldn't have been as bad as worrying that it sort of looked like she was doing some kind of reverse booty call, and she was too bloody tired and too …. utterly pissed off for that. Then after he'd gone, she'd paid the price for being obstinate. No longer sleepy she'd lain there wide awake for what felt like hours, tossing and turning and trying to find a comfortable spot on a pillow that felt like a fucking sandbag, as well as kicking herself for doing what Nan called cutting off her nose to spite her face. Asking herself when she was ever going to bleeding learn.

And now they were back in his house together standing looking at each other in the little bit of light coming from the glow of the fire, both of them waiting for the other one to make a move, or at least to say something.

"Are you okay, you're not upset are you? You're very quiet"

"Nah, why would I be upset? Well, not with you, I thought you might be, it's me that's fucked things up"

"What are you talking about? You haven't fucked anything up"

He put his hands on her arms and eased the sleeves of her parka off, turning to hang it on the coat hooks by the door while Molly simply stood and let him slide it off her without helping, biting her lip anxiously as she looked up at the carefully controlled expression on his face. At the way he was chewing on his bottom lip and pulling it into his mouth with apparent concentration as her heart hammered as if it was going to jump out of her chest.

"Here"

He took her hand and put it on his chest over his heart so that she could feel the way it was doing the same thing as his eyes locked onto hers, the pupils huge and dark as his hands moved to stroke her arms, and then her back and her sides through the fabric of her striped top which made every bit of her _crackle._ Her fingers began to tremble as she moved her hand off his heart and fumbled at his shirt buttons before eventually managing to slip her fingers through the gap she'd created and touch him, caressing the hot skin of his chest with her tiny cold hand and enjoying the way his breathing became irregular.

Sudden urgency made him yank her against him and kiss her repeatedly until they were both struggling for breath, when, without saying a word he swung her up in his arms and stumbled up the stairs pulling her down onto the bed and kissing her over and over until they were breathless again. Then it was all about her as he stroked and kissed and nipped until she was whimpering for him not to stop and to _hurry up,_ which made him chuckle as he stood up to strip his own clothes off without taking his eyes off her. He ignored her pleas in favour of kissing a moist trail down her body and then slowed everything down even more and muffled her groans and the way she was begging him by kissing her mouth over and over again. In spite of her increasingly desperate efforts to reach the end of the ride he refused to rush, just went on moving slowly and building her up to the crest of the wave and then slowing her right down again until eventually she clung to him as the wave broke,and she closed her teeth gently on his neck tasting the salt of his skin as he shouted "Christ" and murmured her name against the moist skin of _her_ neck.

"I love you"

She stared at him, wanting desperately _, desperately_ to believe him, but experience told her it was famous for being one of those things blokes say when they'd just had sex and it would be dumb of her to believe it just because she wanted to. She wasn't aware that she'd shaken her head in an unconscious denial.

"Why don't you believe me? I wouldn't lie to you, I love you"

"I'm scared"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your feedback, and if you're still following, thank you. I really do rely on your reviews as like most of us who write on here I'm a complete drama queen. Christmas is coming so Molly has to face another nightmare …. Charles and Dave having a nice little chat, not to mention Charles and Belinda, and worst of all … Charles and Nan …**_


	16. Chapter 16

"I'm a tad worried I may have fucked things up so badly you're never going to trust me again"

Molly hated it when he did that, it was like he just had to turn his bloody x-ray eyes on and he could read her mind and she didn't want him too. His breath was warm and sweet with the wine he'd drunk, although as far as she knew he'd only had one glass, or maybe two at the most so was stone cold bleeding sober which was more than she was. It wasn't that she was drunk exactly, but she'd been nervous about how the evening would go so had necked enough to make her conscious now of the need to be careful what her mouth was saying.

"It's not … it's …. look, you know what I'm like, soon as I've had a drink I talk bollocks"

"Nice try" He chuckled and rolled on top of her "Come on, talk to me, tell me what it is that scares you"

"Nothin', there's nothing at all"

It wasn't that she didn't want to hear him say the things he thought she wanted to hear, but she had this feeling that no matter what he said or how sincere his voice was, or even how much she'd tried to convince herself it was all she needed for things to go back to the way they were, there was still this _fear_ sitting like a cold lump in the bottom of her stomach and no matter what he said they both knew it could happen all over again, just like that and if she was honest, she was still a bit … pissed at him for what had happened. She'd got used to looking out for herself again, well she'd bloody had to, and it had taken a long, long time for her to get used to him not being someone she could rely on, so the last thing she wanted now was to go back to feeling all needy and as if she'd be in bits if she didn't see him for a few days ….. or, as could quite possibly happen, ever again.

"You know I'm all over the bloody shop when I've had a drink"

"It's called _in vino veritas"_

"Yeah … probably …. if you say so" She smirked and then giggled "I'm sure you're right, whatever it was you just said"

"It means … we're more likely to say what we really mean when we've had a couple of drinks"

"Well not me, I talk an even bigger load of old cobblers, ask anyone, and you're squashing me"

"Sorry"

He touched her nose with his and then moved himself to one side, pulling up the duvet and tucking it over both of them before he propped himself on one elbow to watch her face and try to read her expression.

"You don't …. Okay, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to ….. but I …."

He shook his head and ran his hand through the curls at the back of his neck as he began to gnaw his bottom lip, and paused to run his finger down her cheek, lifting a stray strand of hair that was stuck to her sweaty forehead and smoothing it down before tucking it behind her ear. For the second time in a few hours he knew she'd avoided telling him the truth but every instinct he had was telling him to give it up, that no matter how much he demanded or nagged or pleaded with her, or told her how much he wanted to know what it was worrying her, she wasn't going to tell him. That there was something not quite right, he was 100% certain, but the Molly who would have cuddled up to him and confided all her doubts and fears and let him wipe them away, comfort her, had gone.

"I promise …. hey, are you listening to me, Dawsey?" She promptly yawned and pretended to stop listening in protest at his use of her nickname, putting her fingers in her ears and then giggling as he pulled them out "I am not going to do anything to hurt you, okay? I'm going to make bloody sure that nothing like that happens again" He leaned over to kiss her on the tip of her nose and then smirked "I'm not going to let you out of my sight"

"Shit, a bleedin' stalker" She giggled and kissed his neck where his Adam's apple was bobbing up and down as he swallowed "Thanks, but I don't need looking after, I'm a big girl now, I can look after meself"

"I know you can ….. I can see that …. But just remind me again, who is Adam exactly?"

"Oh yeah, him, but I'm not going to do that again in a hurry am I? I've done it once 'n I didn't like it much so I'm not gonna get married again …. ever ….."

"Never, doesn't that depend who's asking?"

"No"

"You married Adam"

"Yeah I did, 'n he's put me off for life so no need to be jealous of 'im"

"I'm not jealous"

He smirked as he lied through his teeth knowing that she knew every bit as much as he did that he was lying, but it rankled that she would let …. Adam, who was without a shadow of a doubt the fucktard she'd said he was, meet her family and get close to them but that she was determined to keep him as far away as possible.

"If you say so"

"I do say so, and you know I'm always right"

"If you say so"

-OG-

The air was so freezing cold it felt as if she was standing in the fridge as she looked at the clouds of steam her breath made and buried her face into her scarf and then hated the way it felt all warm and damp on her face. God she wished she'd listened to Charles' lecture about heat loss through your bare head which she knew was true but chose to ignore. She should have worn a woolly hat, but she hated the way that they made her scalp prickle and anyway they made her look like a boiled egg, so she was standing in the Market Square with hundreds of other lunatics and stamping her feet up and down in her best market-stall knock off Uggs, putting her arms under her pits to hug herself cos her bloody parka wasn't warm enough either. She wished more than anything that she'd given the whole bloody thing a miss, even though she'd promised, because with a bit of luck she could have been curled up right now on the sofa in front of the fire with Charles, glass of wine in one hand and his arms round her ….. But instead of that she was standing in the middle of a big crowd holding on to some fake candle thing with a light bulb on top instead of a flame, with the others, including Adam, but without Lisa who was going to be late because she'd been going for after-work drinks with work-mates. Everyone was speculating whether or not it was going to snow as they waited for the carol singing to start round a huge tree strung with hundreds and hundreds of twinkling lights and Molly was probably the only one there who didn't actually give a flying fuck whether it was going to snow or not, she had other things to worry about. She cared even less about what was holding up the start of the concert, in fact she was quite happy for it to be even later getting going because Lisa wasn't the only one who was late, he was as well. She'd been anxiously looking round and scanning the crowd for the familiar tall figure with his dark curly hair for the last half hour or more and was now getting increasingly afraid that he was going to make a tit of her by standing her up. He'd said he'd make his own way and meet her there because of some bloody meeting or something he had to go to, a meeting which might well have run over, she knew that, but he'd promised he wouldn't allow it happen.

She'd already got everyone's backs up by refusing to move from their spot by the coffee stall because that was where she'd told him she'd be waiting but which was definitely the most crowded bloody bit of all and had told the others that they could move if they wanted but she wasn't going to as she checked her phone for the nine billionth time, but still no messages.

"Hello dipshits, sorry I'm a bit late" Lisa looked around "Haven't they started yet? I couldn't half do with a coffee …. and a wee"

"Obviously they 'aven't started, have they? Can you hear anyone singing?"

"What's up with you? So" Lisa looked around "Where is he then?"

"He'll be here in a minute and just behave will you? You promised you wouldn't start all that shit again, remember?"

"Sorry"

Lisa was blinking and slurring her words slightly and had the distinct aroma of gin and fags about her so that anyone who knew her well, as Molly did, would know that she only smoked when she was rat-arsed so she'd obviously enjoyed her after-work drinking session before she'd turned up with strings of tinsel round her neck like a scarf and a piece of plastic mistletoe stuck behind one ear. She smiled her best pissed 'butter wouldn't melt in my mouth' smile at Adam who was totally oblivious to her arrival as he stood next to Molly and smirked. He was continually making a production out of pushing his sleeve up his arm to check the time on his watch, something she could see quite clearly out of the corner of her eye so that she vowed to hit Charles, no, to bloody well cripple him, when he did show up. She couldn't say anything about it to Adam, he could have quite easily been checking on how late the carol singers were in getting going, but somehow she didn't think so.

"I'm going to have to buy you some stilts"

The familiar public school accent was accompanied by a hand lifting her hair off the back of her neck and a kiss behind her ear as she snapped her head round, relief pouring from every pore. She'd forgotten when she'd been looking for his head in the crowd that he'd be following his own advice and wearing a beanie hat so that all that looking for dark curly hair had been a total waste of effort.

"You're bleeding late, where you been?" She heard the whining note in her voice with a degree of horror, she hadn't meant to sound like some whinging wife one step away from a rolling pin "Thought you'd stood me up for a minute" She was now doing her best to sound as though she was joking.

He turned her round to face him and put his index finger under her chin, tilting her face up to look into her eyes as he smirked and shook his head.

"Now why on earth would I do that? There are two bloody coffee stalls, Molly, so I've been looking for you all over and believe me, it's un-fucking-believable how hard it is to see someone who's as titchy as you in a crowd like this"

"Sorry, think I shrunk in the wash"

"Nope, you're perfect ….. just bloody small"

He'd pulled his beanie hat off his head and pulled it onto hers, pulling it down over her ears; she resisted the temptation to pull it off because of how lovely and warm it felt with the heat from his head.

"And I thought I told you to wear a hat, I told you you'd be cold and you are, aren't you?"

"Bossy prick" She giggled "'n it's alright for you, innit, you look fuckin' gorgeous in it, I look like a boiled egg"

"A very beautiful boiled egg, I can …"

A lone unaccompanied voice sang the first few lines of "Once in Royal David's City" so that it rang out across the market square signalling the beginning of the carol service and interrupting whatever he'd been about to say with such a huge smirk on his face. It sounded beautiful as it halted all the general hub-bub of chatter and laughter as people stopped talking to each other and started to listen and Charles turned her round, putting his arms round her and nestling her back against him so that his body heat was warming her. He rested his chin on top of her head as they listened and wrapped his gloved hands round hers so that they were both holding her pretend candle and suddenly there was nothing else mattered, she was unbelievably happy.

"Why aren't you singing? Here …"

She'd been listening to him sing and had secretly been dead impressed that he knew all the words to all the verses, she already knew that he had a shit-hot voice of course, but he seemed to have assumed that she wasn't singing because she didn't know the words so he'd let go of her hands to fish the printed song sheet he'd been given out of his pocket and handed it to her. They'd got to the bit where everyone was encouraged to join in with "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" and normally Molly would have been belting it out with everyone else in the singalong, but she was keeping her mouth firmly shut and hoping that he had an attack of amnesia so he'd have forgotten how painfully bad her singing voice was.

"Have you heard her sing?"

If looks could kill Adam would now have curled up and died in agony on the floor. He was obviously eavesdropping on their conversation as he laughed and then snorted out his derision "Take my word for I, it's a wonderfully bloody hideous experience, once you've heard Molly sing you won't forget it in a hurry"

"She sang to me once" Charles chuckled as Molly thought for one horrible toe-curlingly awful moment he was going to agree with Adam "We were on a stage in front of a whole group of adoring squaddies and we all thought she was bloody wonderful, especially me, so yup you could say that I've heard her sing" His voice was full of nostalgia as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head and did his best to disguise the surge of anger that had bubbled up and made him shoot Adam 'a die on the spot, you bastard' look "Do you remember?"

"Yeah course I do, and I am 'ere you two, so don't talk about me like I'm not" She lifted her chin and tried to look up at his face even though he was still holding her with her back towards him "Thought it might be that you'd forgotten, it was a bleeding long time ago now wasn't it?"

"How could I forget? And it feels like yesterday to me"

Lisa was obviously thoroughly bored and restless with the focus of the attention now that the concert had come to an end and the charity collection was under way and she still hadn't had a wee. On top of that Adam still hadn't taken very much notice of her, in fact none at all. Instead he seemed to be far more interested in Molly and her bloke, so that she grabbed hold of Adam's arm and shouted "Come on everyone, pub?"

"Yeah course, but no need to yell, we're not bleeding deaf"

-OG-

The pub was very warm and was packed to the rafters with people gently steaming in the heat from the log fire and gradually removing layers of scarves and hats and coats and extra woollies as the bar staff rushed about as if they were on speed as they tried to serve all the people who were pushing and shoving and shouting and waving ten pound notes in the air desperate to get served first. The noise level was manic as the Christmas spirit engendered by the concert spilled over into the bar, although anyone would be forgiven for thinking that they were the victims of some prolonged period of abstinence the rate at which drinks were disappearing down throats.

Molly and Lisa had made straight for the Ladies, anticipating a long queue as most of the concert goers rushed for a pee after standing out in the cold for so long and Lisa for one was now halfway to desperate.

"Come on Lees get a fucking move on"

Molly was very anxious about leaving Charles with Adam in the bar, she was no longer sure what Adam would think was funny especially if she wasn't there. She was actually disappointed in the way he was behaving, she'd told Charles that he was okay, because she'd never have thought he'd be such an arsehole and was now beginning to wonder if she should meet up with him on her own to 'talk' and find out why he was being such a knob, although the way she felt right now he'd end up needing plastic surgery.

"Look Molls, sorry about the way I've been, you know, about him, Charles, I can see he's a nice bloke, bloody tasty one 'n all, and I can see you're as happy as fuck, so sorry"

"S'okay, and he is and I am" Molly giggled even though she wanted to shove Lisa out of the door and back into the bar, get her to hurry up with washing her hands "So, no progress yet with fuckface in there?"

"Don't call him that, although he is being a bit ….. but no, think he's more interested in you still"

"Nah he's not, honest Lees he's not, never has been, it's some sort of weird blokey thing going on with him, I could bleedin' slap him, probably will if he opens his trap again"

"You taking Charlie boy home for Christmas?"

"Might, if he don't go home to Bath to see his kiddie, but I dunno, Lees, with my lot? What do you think chances are of them behaving theirselves?"

"Slim to fuck-all, I'd say

"Yeah, me 'n all" She chewed at her bottom lip "Haven't said anything yet, not to him or me mum, well we're not actually speaking, but trouble is if I do tell her about him 'n then he don't come for some reason like he's gone to Bath or something, they're gonna think he's a right dick, and if I say nothing they're gonna go on and on at me about fuckface in there"

"Can't you go to Bath with him? Then you wouldn't have to go home"

"Nah, done that once, not gonna do that again, and s'pose I don't 'ave to go to me mum's, I could always fake me own death instead"

"Do you want me to, you know, bring it up, ask what everyone's doing at Christmas? See if you can find out if he's thinking of going to go to Bath, I can do it tactfully ….."

"Nah ….. I fuckin' don't, I'll ask him meself when I'm ready"

"You sure? Bugger, I was thinking I could offer to keep Adam company"

"Good idea, but leave me and Charles out of it" She gave Lisa her best death stare "Don't forget I'm a trained killer so you just keep your bloody gob shut"

-OG-

"You were a long time, everything okay?" He settled her more comfortably on his lap, the pub was jam packed so that seats were at a premium "I was beginning to think you'd done a runner out of the window"

"What and leave you here on your own with him?" She'd nodded her head in Adam's direction "Nah, wouldn't do that would I? Long queue" Molly took a deep breath "I've been thinking, and don't say that sounds dangerous, just remember I'm sitting on your lap, been thinking about Christmas, 'ave you decided what you're doing yet? I mean, don't matter if you aven't, but I wondered if you were, you know, going to Bath to be with Sam, or what?"

"Sam and Rebecca are going skiing, what are you doing? And whatever it is can I do it with you?" He smirked "I thought we could stay in bed for four days"

"Sounds good, nice and Christmassy" Molly giggled "But I've gotta go home for Christmas dinner at least, so I was sort of wondering if you'd like to come with me"

"I'd love to and I promise I'll behave, I won't grope you in front of your mum"

"No point in taking you then is there?"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your lovely on-going support and I am so glad that there are still some lovely people enjoying my parallel universe and saying nice things – over the last two years I seem to have spent almost as much time in it as in the real world, well what passes for the real world chez nous. I, like all the other authors on this site, rely totally on your reviews to keep me going and I know it can be difficult sometimes to think of what to say, but just a couple of words is usually enough to make me say 'Yay', well as long as they're not horrible words, of course.**_

 _ **Christmas day in east Ham … just around the corner ….**_


	17. Chapter 17

"I feel sick"

"No you don't" He smiled in an attempt at encouragement "Come on, it'll be okay, trust me, it's going to be fine"

"You don't know 'em" Molly knew that she'd reverted to being six years old and sulky "You've forgotten what I told you, 'aven't you? You don't listen, why don't you ever listen to me? Or 'ave you got that amnesia shit"

"Nope, I haven't forgotten and I do listen to you, but I'll never _know_ them if we sit out here all day will I?" He opened his door to get out of the car and walk round to her side "Come on, be a brave soldier and let's get in there it's unbelievably fucking out here for a start and hey, where's the girl who crawled through a minefield and frightened the shit out of me? The one with the medal"

"She's having a day off …. Can we go home instead, to yours I mean" Molly whimpered and looked at him beseechingly "Oh god, must I?"

As she undid her seatbelt and swung her legs round to get out of the car, Molly had a deep scowl on her face and began to mutter loudly, fully intending for him to hear every word, that she didn't give a shit about it being Christmas Day, that she didn't feel any goodwill towards anyone, not even him so that he put his arms round her and hugged her hard before he put his head back and roared with laughter. He assumed, wrongly, that she was pretending to throw a tantrum; anyone would think that she was younger than Sam.

But in fact, now that they were outside the flat and the reality of the situation had hit her she was far too busy wondering what the fuck had possessed her to even think for a single solitary second that this was a good idea when it so obviously wasn't that she was having great difficulty in seeing the funny side of any of it. She should have listened to that little voice in her head, the one that had told her this was a shite idea, but oh no, not her, she'd just closed her ears and gone on blindly ignoring the voice of reason and common sense. Fuck it … it was far too late now to feign injury or serious illness.

The early morning snow hadn't lasted for more than a few hours before it had turned back to sleety rain and although that had now stopped as well, the sky was grey and overcast and the air was full of an icy chill so that the pavement where he was standing holding the door open for her was all slippery and filthy with this greyish brown slush, which matched Molly's mood perfectly.

"Come on, cheer up, it's Christmas and you look as if you're going to the dentist ….. now have you got everything?"

"Yeah, and I know its Christmas, don't have to keep on telling me, but let's leave the engine running so we can make a quick getaway"

"Good idea, why didn't I think of that?" He was still laughing at the truculent expression on her face "Come on, Dawesy, it's one day and there are another 364 to go before we have to do it again, and I'll make it up to you later on, I promise we can have our own celebration when we get home"

"What again? No thanks, already did that, and why do you always have to be so … bloody sensible and reasonable?" Molly was still muttering and grumbling under her breath and pulling faces like a thwarted child as she resisted the temptation to giggle or stamp her foot at the horror of what was about come. She collected up the carrier bags of brightly wrapped parcels out of the boot "I know what it is, it's cos you're bleeding old, innit? Got that memory thing, that demented thingy"

"Thanks and no, I bloody haven't" He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently changing the mood as he stopped laughing and pasted on his best puppy dog eyes expression on his face instead "Look at me, would you be happier, would you prefer it if I just drop you off here and come back later on to pick you up?"

"What? …. nah … what? No … course not …. Why would I want you to do that, what would you do?"

What she wanted to say was 'Would you mind? Thanks very much' but obviously couldn't, it would be a horrible thing to do to him and would hurt him and she didn't ever want to do that and anyway she wanted to be with him, it was just that the thought of spending a whole day with the family and him in the same room was a bleeding nightmare come true and she hadn't been lying, she could quite easily be sick if she thought about it for too long or too hard.

"I don't know, I could sit out here in the cold and wait for you" He put the most martyred and hard-done by look he could on his face "Or I could get back in the car and go to Bath where my dad will be timing everything my mum does and making notes, he'll be doing a sort of time and motion study and driving her fucking insane"

"Really? don't remember him being that bad"

"Oh yep, and that's when he's not re-laying the table because the cutlery isn't in exactly the right place so that she has to go and get herself another drink, a large one"

"Oh shit …. Really?"

"No" He was laughing and dodged out of her reach as she went to hit him "No violence it's Christmas …. Or I could go and find your mate with the mistletoe and see if she'll give me Christmas dinner"

"It weren't real mistletoe, I think it come off of a cracker" Molly giggled at the expression on his face and at the way he was shuddering at the memory.

"She was real …. that was enough"

Their post Carol concert visit to the pub had ended with Lisa having the one more drink that had sent her over the edge into the realms of the catastrophically pissed so that she'd untangled the sprig of plastic mistletoe from her hair and decided it would be a wonderful idea to have a Christmas kiss with every bloke in the bar, well those she considered worthy or those under thirty anyway. To say it hadn't gone down well with the other patrons was an understatement, the female ones anyway who hadn't taken kindly to a totally plastered blonde who was wearing a very low cut top and had tinsel round her neck waving a bit of plastic over their partner's head for a snog, or worse still, loudly dismissing their partner as too old or too fugly, their shorthand for fucking ugly. She'd gone for Charles several times before Molly had pushed her away from him and reminded her somewhat forcibly to keep her fucking hands to herself and to get off and leave him alone, that he was hers and was too old anyway, but Lisa had just kept on insisting that he was the exception to her age rule, and had seemed totally oblivious to his complete lack of enthusiasm and the way he was trying to fend her off him. Adam had eventually taken her home, well he had after she'd had a bit of a ding dong slanging match with the publican and he'd thrown her out, telling her she was barred from coming back until she'd sobered up, so that meant the rest of the evening at least.

As Molly had watched Lisa behaving like someone's worst nightmare she'd had this horrible feeling that once upon a time, like this time last year probably, she'd have thought it was just a bit of fun and would most probably have joined in. It seemed that in the space of a few short weeks she'd changed, a lot, something that would have made her laugh and deny it loudly if anyone had told her that that was what was going to happen.

"It weren't you she was after, was it? You was just like … dunno, bit of camouflage or some'ing, whatdymcallit collateral damage, it was Adam she was after"

"And a lovely couple they make too, I hope that they'll be very happy together" He snorted "They deserve each other, but can we get inside now before we freeze out here"

-OG-

"Well, well, well, so you made it then?"

"Yeah, course we did, hello Nan, Merry Christmas, you alright?"

Molly felt a huge surge of affection, all her doubts forgotten, as her grandmother opened the front door and stood there looking over Molly's shoulder at Charles as he was standing outside on the walkway, a polite smile on his face as, loaded with the carrier bags, he waited to be invited in, before she smiled and kissed her granddaughter soundly.

"Will be now you're here and your mum can stop all her fussing about everythin' being like all those bleedin' cooking shows on the tele ….. or them celebrity shit-sheets she reads"

"Oh god, is she in a state?"

"You know what she can get like" Nan shrugged at Molly in answer to her question about Belinda and turned to look again at Charles, then gestured, motioning at him with her head to come in before taking her first proper look at him "Come on, hurry up and get yourself in young man and get that bleedin' wood in the hole, it's perishing out there" She looked him up and down and then smiled broadly as she put out a hand to shake his and Molly saw the familiar twinkle appear in her eyes, the one that her Nan always had at the sight of a "looker" as she would almost certainly describe him. She was now hanging onto his hand for far longer than was necessary and had that inappropriate look on her face, the one that said she was considering what her chances were of running off with her granddaughter's boyfriend as Molly introduced the pair of them with her giggle bubbling up. She'd known all along that Nan would think he was lovely to look at, it wasn't that that she was worrying about.

"Nan, this is Charles, Charles, this is me Nan"

"Hello, it's very nice to finally meet you after I've heard such a lot about you, Merry Christmas Mrs …. "

"And to you 'n all but you can call me Nan, or Marge if you like, I'm sure you've already got a Nan of yer own, haven't you? So, come on in Charles, come in …. I must say you're a big improvement on the last one"

"NAN, fuck sake"

"I'm just sayin', Molls, that's all and you know I always speak as I find, you can't go far wrong if you tell the truth" Nan shut the front door as Molly held her hand out for Charles' coat and dumped it, together with hers, on the newel post. She was quietly dying of embarrassment inside, this was what she'd been worrying about and she desperately wanted to change the subject but Nan hadn't quite finished yet "I never took to that Adam, you know that as well as I do, Molls, I mean nice enough, bit bloody boring but good looking if you like that sort of thing, but me, I couldn't see what you saw in him"

"Nan, could you please shut up about Adam" Molly shot an agonised glance at Charles who was smirking all over his face before hastily re-arranging his expression the minute he saw the dismay on hers "Where's me Mum, and where are the little bleeders anyway, bit quiet in 'ere innit?"

"Yer mum's in the kitchen having a worry if the turkey's gonna be cooked in time or something, 'n the kids are out with Dave trying out the roller skates yer mum got for 'em, Belinda wanted them out from under while she got ready for …. well … you know what she's like, Molls"

"Blimey, she trusted him?"

"Yeah, well pub's not open yet is it?" Nan shrugged, she shared Molly's scepticism on Dave's reliability as a childminder "Bella's in the front room, says she's dying cos yer mum made her get up out her bed" Nan gave another expressive shrug as she turned towards the kitchen "Out last night weren't she?"

"Mum, is that our Molls I can hear?"

"Yeah, we're just coming, she's bought that bloke from Fifty Shades with her"

"NAN" Molly heard Charles snort "He don't look anything like him"

"How do you know what he looks like?" Charles bent down and whispered in her ear as he gestured with the carrier bags, not sure now whether to put them down at the bottom of the stairs or to carry them through to the kitchen where they were now obviously heading.

"Me favourite film, innit? And you can dump that lot down there"

"Interesting"

"Forget it, I've never even seen it … seen the trailers though"

"Shame, had some good ideas in it"

"What, you've seen it?"

"Wouldn't have missed it"

"You never … stop bleeding' winding me up"

"Okay" He laughed and kissed her cheek, then bit his bottom lip as he smirked, his eyes glittering with amusement "Book was good though"

"Liar"

-OG-

The kitchen was chaotic, every single surface cluttered and covered with something and the room was filled with steam as well as mouth-watering smells that reminded Charles he was hungry as the small plump woman with the fair hair who was so obviously Molly's mother gave him a tentative smile of welcome. He couldn't get over how young she looked, especially if he compared her to his own mother who actually looked more of an age to Molly's Nan, another smallish fair haired woman but lean, without a hint of fat anywhere. It was something that brought the age gap between him and Molly back into sharp focus. The one thing that did warm him towards both of them, even though her mother was looking dubiously at him and her Nan had done her very best to embarrass the fuck out of him was that they both had Molly's incredible green eyes.

"Mum, this is Charles, Charles this is me mum"

"Hello Mrs Dawes, Merry Christmas …. and thanks for inviting me"

"You're welcome … it's nice to meet you Charles, Oh and call me Belinda"

Belinda still looked tentative as well as incredibly flustered, she felt hot and bothered and her cheeks were pink as she shook his hand somewhat limply. She was embarrassingly aware that her fingers might well be harbouring bits of sage and onion stuffing mix out the packet and that they probably stank of onions as well, as she raised her eyebrows at Nan, portraying a kind of surprised disbelief at her mother who had a matching look on her face.

"What can I do to help Mum?"

"Nothin' I've got it all under control in 'ere" Both Molly and Nan raised their eyebrows at this obviously blatant misrepresentation of the truth "I'll put the kettle on 'n we can have a cuppa, you go on through and see Bella … oh and me tree"

"You sure I can't do nothin'? I could make the tea if you wanted" Molly suddenly realised that what her mother wanted most of all was for her to take Charles out of the kitchen. Firstly so that her and Nan could talk about him and also because Belinda was flustered at the obvious mess "Charles don't drink tea, Mum, strong black coffee if we've got any"

"Charles?"

"That'd be lovely but please don't worry, just as it comes will be fine, thank you Mrs. Daw…. Belinda"

-OG-

"It won't be lovely trust me, round here strong coffee means two spoons of Nescafe instead of the one, that's if we've even got any Nescafe, it's more likely to be some knock off shit from the market"

They'd moved into the hallway out of earshot of the kitchen, and were having a whispered conversation although Molly could hear the faint buzz of conversation so that she knew that they were talking about him; she thought of asking Charles if his ears were burning as she bent to collect the carrier bags, but had suddenly got all uptight again. He put his hands out to spin her round and then let his gaze roam slowly over her worried little face before dropping a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"So, what's up with you now grumpy?"

"I'm not grumpy, yeah alright maybe I am 'n I know I wanted them to like you, but it feels a bit … dunno, yeah I do, it feels like you're charming the bleedin' pants off of them"

"What a thought …" He chuckled as he kissed her again "I know you want me them to like me but I wasn't doing anything … like that, I was just being polite" He turned her round and patted her on her bum as they headed towards the front room "Can't bloody win with you, can I?"

"No, I know 'n it's not you it's me, I'm a bit …. you know, sorry"

"God I'd never have guessed if you hadn't told me, stop worrying, it's all going to be okay"

The tree came as a complete surprise, a 'lost for words', stand still in total amazement surprise. When Molly had been a little girl, a tiny white plastic approximation of a tree had sufficed. It had been bought from a market stall by Nan, or more likely liberated without the necessity of any exchange of cash, but to Molly it had meant Christmas and she'd loved it. There weren't any lights on it, not that she could remember anyhow, but they had had some decorations, a couple of baubles and a bit of tinsel here and there, probably acquired from the same source as the tree, and all those paper chains that she'd spent hours and hours licking and sticking together.

This tree still wasn't a real one, but it was big and it was green and it was covered with loads of little lights and baubles and strings of tinsel, and in Molly's eyes it was beautiful. Okay, maybe there was a bit too much sparkly stuff on it for it to be called tasteful, and there wasn't any discernible colour scheme but it was everything that she hadn't had as a kid and she loved it. Her eyes now started to prickle and fill with tears that threatened to spill over as she felt this overwhelming affection for her mother who she knew would have loved being able to get all this, so that she turned and shouted at her mum who was still in the kitchen.

"Mum, the tree's beautiful, it's really lovely, I love it"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing Chapter 16, your kind words mean so much to me. The next Chapter is just about ready to go so I will be updating in a day or so, I hope that you enjoyed this.**_


	18. Chapter 18

"No it's not, it's a bit shit more like and why the fuck do we have to listen to this ….. shit ….. all day?"

Bella was slumped, head on one arm of the chair with her hair hanging down and her legs over the other arm one slipper missing and one hanging off with her eyes screwed tightly shut as she waved her hand in the air in front of her, either as a vague acknowledgment of her sister or as a gesture of abhorrence at the sound of Ding Dong Merrily from the Christmas CD playing quietly in the background.

"Bella don't be horrible, Mum's tree's lovely" Molly walked across and gave her sister's leg a sharp prod with her foot, not a proper kick even though she was sorely tempted, but just a sort of nudge that made her remaining slipper fall off "Charles, this person in the chair, the one what looks like seven shades of shit with a hangover and who hasn't got any bleedin' manners at ALL, is my little sister Bella" Molly thought for a second about what to say next to Bella who still hadn't lifted her head properly or opened her eyes to look at either of them "And you get up and change the music if you don't like it, don't expect someone else to do it for you just cos you was out last night and got shit-faced, and that's no reason to be mean to mum either is it? And where ARE your bleedin' manners? Say hello to Charles"

"Who are you, Tinkerbell? Or the Angel Gabriel?"

"No neither ….. and anyhow he was a bloke"

If Bella heard what Molly had said she took absolutely no notice, instead began a whining justification of herself "She bloody deserves it, Moll, she shouldn't have made me get up, I should still be in me bed, hello Charles" Bella didn't bother to alter her tone of voice or open her eyes as she greeted him so that Charles gave one of his low soft chuckles, he was obviously deeply amused although momentarily exceedingly glad that he was an only and hadn't got any siblings like this one, something he'd always regretted in the past, not now. He introduced himself quietly "And hello to you too Bella, it's very nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you" He gave another chuckle "Merry Christmas"

At the sound of his voice one of her eyelids shot skywards and she immediately started to struggle to get herself properly upright despite having to battle an attack of ugly head rush "Funny that, cos we'd never even 'eard of you till a few days back and then me mum went into this shittin' fit of everythin' has to be just right, not like when it were just that boring fucker Adam, nobody gave a toss about 'im so she didn't feel like she 'ad to bother"

Bella had now managed to get both her eyes open enough to squint up at Charles so that his physical appearance registered somewhere in the dark reaches of her hangover befuddled brain along with his soft posh speaking voice, two things that made her lift her hands and smooth her tangled hair away from her face trying to smile at him in a vain attempt to look beguiling. Her head was making it impossibly hard for that smile to be convincing as a smile of welcome and not a leer as she looked at the tall bloke with the sexy voice standing there smiling down at her with his hair all messy and his eyes all crinkled up at the edges. Shit, just her bloody luck to look and feel like something the cat spewed up when her jammy bloody sister bought someone who looked like him home with her. Even feeling like shit she could see exactly what Molly saw in him and why she'd got shot of boring bloody Adam in favour of this one _,_ she would have done the exact same thing herself given half a bloody chance. Okay maybe he looked a little bit on the old side for her, but who the fuck cared.

"God Bels, just shut your gob will you?"

Molly glared at her sister, treating her to one of her patented death stares before shooting an anxious look at Charles who was smiling and idly playing with her hair. She wanted to hit her, hard, and would have done just that if he hadn't been standing there, instead she settled for gnawing frantically at her lip and trying desperately to think of something to say, bearing in mind what Bella had just said about him in front of him. Didn't her bloody stupid hung-over brain dead little sister realise how it would make him feel to hear someone say he'd made a shed load of work for mum just by coming home with her for the day?

"What? What did I do? ….. What you looking at me like that for?"

"Hey, don't worry about it" Charles spoke softly and dropped a light kiss on Molly's temple, knowing she was livid at her sister's outstanding lack of tact so that he suddenly understood exactly why she'd been so anxious about her family before they'd arrived "Come on, smile, it's okay, really it is"

"Nah it's bloody not, I'm sorry Charles, I don't know what to say, she's a bloody moron sometimes …. and I bet it's not even true, she's just mad at mum for making her get up when she's got a hangover"

"Who you calling a moron?"

"You, will you just shut the fuck up and come and say hello properly"

"Can't, I can't get up right now, I'm not well"

"Bloody hell Bels, what were you on last night?"

"Dunno, can't remember"

"Jesus, where did you go? And who with for that matter?"

"Tell you later, let's talk about some'ing else"

Bella shot a quick glance at her grandmother as she came bustling in with the mugs of tea and a coffee for Charles, although nothing at all for Bella, who quite obviously didn't want to talk about her evening out in front of Nan for some reason, and who was also quite obviously in her bad books already if the look she gave her was anything to go by.

"Tea Molls, and 'ere Charles, black coffee for you, that's right innit?" She smiled at him and patted his arm as she passed him a mug of something that looked remarkably like tar, and then turned her head and spoke sharply to Bella with iron in her voice. Charles wouldn't have minded betting that there were very few people who argued the toss with her and even fewer who won "Now young lady, do some'ing useful, get yourself up off yer arse, get in that kitchen 'n go and 'elp yer mother"

"I'll go Nan"

Molly didn't want to leave him on his own with Nan, heaven forbid, but she wanted to speak to her Mum, wanted to ask her what she thought of him, not that her mum had had much chance to get to know him yet, but still first impressions and all that.

"Nah you won't my girl, Bella will, you can stop 'ere and tell me 'ow you've been, what you've been up to and you can look after this lovely man of yours" It was obvious to Molly what sort of first impression he'd made on Nan "Mind you, if I was twenty years younger ….."

"NAN" Molly shot an agonised look of embarrassment at Charles who smiled and shook his head slightly trying to tell her not to worry.

"You'd still be twenty years too fuckin' old"

All three of them heard Bella's muttered comment clearly even though that wasn't what she'd intended when she'd said it under her breath after she'd managed to struggle to her feet to do as she was told, but all three of them decided to tactfully ignore it even though Nan glared at her and Charles felt the small involuntary shudder of a hastily suppressed giggle that ran through Molly.

"No, you're alright Mum, don't need help in 'ere and Dave'll be back in a bit with the little 'uns, you go and talk to your sister Bels"

Belinda's voice was distant but distinct as she yelled from the kitchen meaning that Bella turned round and flounced back, flinging herself down on the chair with an expression of barely suppressed triumph on her face as she smirked at her grandmother. Charles desperately wanted to laugh, he'd seen that expression on Molly's face so many times when they'd disagreed about something and she'd won.

"So, come on then, what did Father Christmas bring you for being a good girl?"

Molly sat forward on the sofa and smirked at her sister as she tucked her hair back behind her ears angling her head from side to side to show off the diamond studs in her ears that Charles had given her that morning while they were still in bed.

"Bloody hell, Molls, they real?" Bella got up to have a closer look at her sister's ears and had to grab onto Molly's arm as a wave of dizziness, the result of moving too quickly with a killer hangover, almost made her pitch headlong across her sister and end up face down in his lap "Can I have a borrow?"

"Yeah they're real and nah, you bloody can't"

They'd solemnly agreed not to exchange gifts, had promised they would wait until after Christmas when they would get each other something while they were away for a few days, where they were going to go they hadn't decided as yet, but Charles kept insisting it had to be somewhere warm. He kept saying how lovely it would be for them to be able to go to bed without having to have a bloody great duvet up around their necks. Both of them had broken that promise. When Molly had seen the tiny jewellers box she'd thought for one terrifying moment that he'd bought her a ring, a terror that she'd managed to hide, she hoped successfully, as he'd put the studs in her ears and she'd dotted his face with hundreds of little thank you kisses and told herself that of course there wasn't a bit of her that was ….. disappointed …. she'd have had to say no anyway. It was the first time in her life that she'd ever had real diamonds, well real anything actually, in the past any jewellery she'd been given or had got for herself had come from QVC or the market, that's if you don't count Smurf's mum's ring, and that had never been what you might call hers.

"Ere Nan, 'ave you seen our Molls' earrings?"

"Very nice, you must remember to show your dad, give him some ideas for next year"

Neither of the girls responded to what Nan said, they just exchanged eyebrow raised looks instead so that Charles was aware of an undercurrent but was slightly puzzled as to what he was missing.

"Don't shit-stir Nan" Bella turned to Molly to try and change the subject "What did you get for him Molls? for Charles?"

"A toy"

"A what? … a toy what? ….. Oh I get it, one of them … ones"

"No it bloody well weren't and what do you know about them sort of toys?" Molly giggled and blushed slightly, glad now that she hadn't given into temptation and done exactly that, she'd thought about it "It's a little 'elicopter, sort of looks like a real one, but really titchy, it's remote control with a little spy camera thing on it"

"It's bloody brilliant"

Charles laughed out loud as he spoke and Molly glowed, knowing he was completely sincere. He'd already charged the battery up and got it going round the front room at his and had then joked that it wasn't fair and he wanted to bring it with him until Molly had pointed out that three little boys, four if you counted her dad and five with him all wanting to play with the same thing at the same time was a recipe for fighting. She had been immeasurably relieved that he genuinely seemed to love it, her confidence in the thing had started to drain away almost from the moment she got it back to barracks and thought about wrapping it up. She'd sat and looked at the box for bloody ages wondering whether the sensible thing would be to take it back and buy him a … shirt or something, now she was glad that she hadn't.

"Not gonna ask you what Santa bought you, you're never a good girl" Molly laughed at her sister as she said it.

"Bloody am, have you know he bought me some knickers" Bella stuck her tongue out at her sister and laughed "You might 'ave some 'n all when you get to open stuff, I bet Nan got some for you 'n all"

There was another definite undercurrent in the conversation as Nan glared at Bella and changed the subject.

"That'll do young lady" She shot a glance at Charles "So how do you two know each other then?"

Molly made an instant decision to get her sister on her own for a bit of a _chat_ or to ring her in a day or two and arrange for them to go out for a drink and a bit of a catch up. She realised that it had been months since they'd last done it and she had no clue what was going on in Bella's world.

"Charles is army Nan"

"What like you, you mean?"

"Well yeah … nah not really, I mean, you know I'm a squaddie ….. and he's …. well, he's … umm … he's … not"

"Very clearly put, Dawsey"

Charles was laughing as he leaned forward to explain what she'd meant but there was a sudden commotion as several children hurtled into the room all shouting at the tops of their voices or in the case of one of them, bawling loudly. Molly had a huge smile on her face as she jumped to her feet and then sank to the floor buried in their hugs and looked up with uncertainty as her dad yelled at them to 'bleeding shut it for god's sake' and that 'he couldn't hear himself think' a statement which prompted a derisive snort and a muttered riposte from her grandmother. Whatever it was she'd said, and Charles didn't catch it, it was obviously not the first time she'd ever said it as Molly and Bella both collapsed in fits of giggles and Belinda, who'd appeared in the doorway, began to 'shshsh' at them all, shooting agonised glances in Charles' direction.

He realised with a jolt that Molly hadn't told them anything about him at all, that they hadn't even known he existed before now even though he and Molly had known one another for years. As far as her family knew he was a complete bloody stranger that she'd known for a few days, or maybe a few weeks at the most and that not her parents, her grandmother, her siblings, none of them had the faintest idea of their shared history. None of them knew that he and Molly had been lovers before she'd even met bloody Adam.

-OG-

"What you crying for mate?" Molly had taken the piece of loo roll her grandmother handed her when she'd pulled the small tear-stained and snotty nosed little boy onto her lap as he stopped trying to lick the snot away and wiped his nose with the back of a grubby little hand spreading it across his face "'ere ….. Martin, blow …. don't wanna wear your snot all day, do I?"

"He didn't wanna come 'ome, wanted to stay on the bloody rec and build a fuc… a snowman, never mind there's hardly any bleeding snow left and that it's perishing bloody cold out there"

"Never mind mate, there'll be some more another day …. I expect" She looked round at everyone else biting her lip, acknowledging by her look that it was probably wishful thinking rather than a certainty but that it would satisfy him, would stop his tears.

"Hello Dad"

"Molls"

Dave nodded his head in acknowledgment of his eldest daughter, the girl that he loved but didn't understand one little bit; he didn't get for one minute what the fuck she thought she was doing getting shot of a decent bloke like Adam.

"Dad, this is Charles … ummm …. Charles is a sort of friend of mine" She turned round from where she was still sitting on the floor and looked at Charles mouthing the word 'sorry' knowing he would hate the way she'd just downgraded their relationship "Charles this is me Dad, Dave"

"Mr Dawes …. " Charles half-raised himself from the sofa and leaned over to shake Dave Dawes' hand, he would have got totally to his feet but Molly was still leaning against his legs as her father leaned over and shook his hand with a surprisingly firm grip. The man looked exactly the way Molly had described him so long ago, except that he wasn't dressed solely in his pants; he was pale and pasty and somewhat overweight, definitely didn't look as if he was particularly fit, but he had a pleasant enough expression on his face as he nodded an acknowledgement. He was another one who was far younger than Charles had expected, he looked to be a different generation to his own father.

The exchange of gifts was manic with Molly distributing stuff from the carrier bags and children ripping paper off and then throwing it all over the floor, shouting their delight at a selection of games and there was smelly stuff for the adults, a mutual choice it would seem, as well as some very minimal knickers for Molly which made her giggle and exchange knowing looks and raised eyebrows with Bella and her other sister Jade. Jade was a young teenager who bore an incredible likeness to Molly so that he'd winked and smiled at her and was rewarded by her face turning into a bright scarlet beacon of embarrassment which made him regret the impulse. He hadn't expected any of the Dawes clan to be shy …. it was the last thing he'd expected The younger ones appeared to be thrilled with the selection of tooth-rotting sweets that Molly had suggested he buy when he'd asked, so that he felt a sudden sharp pang of loneliness for Sam.

He missed him badly but had been trying not to dwell on not seeing him on Christmas Day; he could only hope his son was having a good time and enjoying the snow. Sam would think he was in heaven if his mum allowed him to have sweets, they were strictly forbidden as far as she was concerned, even on Christmas day, so that Charles promised himself he would get her to cut Sam some slack next time he saw them. Molly had told him that on no account to get booze, especially not for her dad, although he'd bought some chocolates and bottles of Prosecco as his contribution to the dinner, it would have been Champagne but Molly had said that she wasn't keen.

In no time at all the kids were high as kites on the sweets they'd been stuffing as fast as they could get them into their mouths knowing that their window of opportunity was limited and sure enough Belinda had taken them away and put them out of reach saying they'd spoil their dinners if they had any more and that they could have them back after, something that triggered a mass melt-down which she completely ignored. They were now busy charging up and down the stairs yelling at the tops of their voices as they played some complicated game that sounded dangerous so that Belinda kept on yelling "Not on the bloody stairs, how many times 'ave I told you lot?" which they completely ignored and "It'll end in someone getting 'urt" which they also ignored.

-OG-

"What time's dinner gonna be ready Belinda? Me bloody stomach thinks me throat's been cut"

"Don't start, it'll be ready when it's ready, Mum wants to eat before the Queen but I'm still waiting for Shazza to ring, let me know if she's coming or not" Belinda was in the kitchen so missed seeing the horrified glances that her family exchanged "Wish she'd 'urry up, she's late"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your kind words and reviews, I really appreciate them. I know that this Christmas Day seems to be lasting forever and we haven't even got to lunch yet, but it was always going to be the focus of the story and has got a fair way to go yet! I'm hoping to update before Christmas Day (the real one) but can't promise (relatives permitting) so just in case I want to wish everyone a really happy Christmas, I can't believe that this is my third one writing on here… On a different note no prizes for guessing what my hero is getting for Xmas …. Hope you enjoyed Christmas morning with the Dawes … Christmas lunch ASAP**_


	19. Chapter 19

"All that holy choir shit and then the bloody Queen, and now we gotta put up with HER?" Bella made her feelings plain with a loud snort of disgust.

"Why is she still 'anging about" Molly looked around at the others, waiting for someone to say something, looking at everyone in general and no-one in particular, then pulled a face of enquiry at Dave "Thought Mum was gonna bin 'er"

"Still 'ere, like a fart in a car"

The girls began to laugh as much at the disgust in his voice as at what he'd said, so that Charles began to laugh with them even though he hadn't got a clue who or what the hell they were talking about. Molly and Bella were clutching at each other and howling with laughter which made it incredibly infectious, another huge chunk of Molly and her world that he knew nothing about at all.

"Who's Shazza?"

"Oh you're gonna _love_ her" Her face was alight with laughter as she turned to look at him, doing her best to control the giggles enough so she could speak "Not that she's gonna like you very much, she hates men almost as much as she hates army, finks she's fucking wonderful cos she's one of them 'stop the war' mob, said she was dead sorry for me having to go to Afghan"

"Be fair Molls, you weren't exactly her biggest fan, were you?" Bella was now laughing so hard that she clutched herself between her legs shrieking 'Oh shit, stop making me laugh I'm gonna wet meself"

"Well …. stupid cow got right up me bloody nose didn't she? What did she know about any of it? nothin' at all, that's what"

"Stop it, pair of you, she's your mum's friend"

"Bloody hell you've changed your tune, last I remember you was gonna roll her in a carpet and lob 'er on the M25"

"Yeah well" Nan shot a concerned glance at the bemused expression on Charles' face, he was still none the wiser as to who this Shazza actually was "Live and let live is what I always say"

"Since when? Nah … you bloody don't … 'n I really thought Mum might have got shot of her by now, not gone round asking her to come and ruin Christmas ….. actually, bit surprised she eats Christmas dinner, would of thought she'd of lived off of that bloody crappy onion soup of 'ers" Molly went off into a fresh peel of laughter which Bella immediately joined in "Maybe that's what makes her fart Dad"

"You never even tasted 'er soup" Nan tutted loudly and shook her head at them, doing her level best to look as if she disapproved.

"I know, what's that got do with it? You know it's an iceberg even if you can only see the tip of it" Molly sneaked a quick glance at Charles biting her lip as she looked to see if he remembered and whether he was laughing at the memory, and then shouted at Belinda as Bella and Nan chorused that they didn't understand what bleedin' icebergs had got to do with anything which made Charles laugh "MUM, what you ask 'er for"

"She said she might be on 'er own Molls, and I didn't like to think of that and your dad agreed with me, didn't you Dave? So you lot can just bloody put up with it" Belinda appeared in the doorway, oven gloves dangling from her hand "She means well"

"Yeah, course she does" Molly and Bella exchanged eyebrow raised and exaggeratedly open mouthed looks of complete astonishment as Bella made a puking gesture of putting her fingers down her throat, Nan couldn't have sounded less sincere if she'd practised in front of the mirror for a week, while Dave looked at Belinda, a look of complete bewilderment pasted all over his face "I don't remember that, you sure?"

"Stop it you …. them lot are bad enough" Belinda waved her hand towards her daughters and her mother "Get over it, you lot, 'n if she comes I want you all to be nice to her. I think we'll set the table as if she's coming 'n then if she don't we can move the stuff off … okay?" Belinda looked round as she asked the question, but with such a stern look and firm tone in her voice that it was obviously more of an order which Charles admired, he thought it wouldn't have been out of place on a parade ground "So just get on with it and stop bleedin' showing us up"

"MUM" Molly got up and put her arm round her shoulders hugging her "Sorry, sorry we'll be nice won't we Bels? Promise …." She bit her lip to make sure she didn't start laughing again "Can't answer for 'er of course" She nodded her head to indicate Nan, then pressed her lips together struggling not to come apart and start laughing again "And long as I don't have to sit next to her ….. or across the table from 'er neither" Charles could hear as the giggle started to bubble up in her voice "I think Bels should, her punishment for last night, serve her bloody right"

"No thanks not me 'n you can't make me, I think it should be Charles, meself, he's only one hasn't met her yet inne?"

"Don't be bloody mean just cos he's …."

"Look" Belinda interrupted whatever Molly had been going to say to Bella, she was rapidly running out of patience "Just lay the bloody table you two and stop behaving like …. what will Charles think of us?"

"Mum, he's not gonna think anything … are you?" Molly nudged him with her elbow as he grinned and shook his head "He knows what I'm like, Mum, he's used to me"

"But I thought …" Belinda shook her head "Nah, don't matter, just lay that table and don't forget to lay a place for her, for Shazza, yer dad can sit next to her"

"Me? … Why me? … Can't stand the bloody woman, can I?"

"For being a twat" Belinda turned on her heel "Oh just stop it all of you, be nice"

There was a deafening silence as she flounced out of the room, metaphorically slamming the door behind her, which she obviously would have done if there'd been one instead of just a frame, so that the family all grimaced and exchanged guilty looks, no-one had set out to upset her. The guilty remorse proved to be a bit short-lived as Nan spoke very softly and as if she was thinking aloud, which set them off again.

"Never mind, bit of luck her broomstick won't start"

-OG-

"I really do need to pee, so unless you want to stand there and keep me company …..?"

"Oh sorry, I'll for you wait outside"

Charles needing the loo had enabled her to drag him away from her dad and the others for a private chat, it had given her a chance to get him in the bathroom for a progress report on how he was doing, whether he was okay or whether he wanted to go home yet. It all still felt like a terrible mistake to her, they'd been there for less than an hour and it felt like a bloody week so god knows how it felt to him. It had been good to have a laugh with Bella, been a bit like old times, even if it had been about that bloody woman and her camper van, and having hugs with the little ones as well as being with Nan and mum had all been lovely, she hadn't realised how much she'd missed them, but her dad still hadn't addressed a single word to Charles and that was really bleeding worrying her. The way he was obviously stewing about something, most probably her and Adam, was making her dead bothered about what was going to happen when he started on the booze.

"Hey, beautiful, stop worrying, come on everything's fine"

She'd heard the flush and had tried hard to pin her "nothing's wrong" smile to her face but was a bit late achieving it as Charles carefully pulled some stray strands of her hair away from her mouth where they'd stuck to the shiny lip gloss stuff she'd just renewed. He still couldn't get used to seeing her wearing make-up, to him she looked just as beautiful without as he kissed her on the tip of her nose before he rested his forehead against hers and spoke softly, his voice full of affection wanting very badly to wipe the worried frown from her face.

"Let's go and set the table for your mum, make sure that no-one forgets to set a place for Shazza" He laughed again "She can't be that bad"

"Yeah she bloody can"

"Lovely, can't wait to meet her"

The horrified expression that greeted all his offers of help said it all about how Belinda was feeling without the need for her to use words, but she insisted that it was really, really kind of him and she really appreciated it but that he and Molly should go back in the front room and that she'd manage, that she had it all under control but thanks very much for the offer anyway, the subtext of which he read as 'fuck off'. Dave loudly declared that it was like the bleeding Gobi desert in the house and more than time for bottles to get open and what did everyone want, there was beer or wine or there was some gin, if Marge hadn't already drunk it all, bloody old lush that she was. Molly immediately checked the time on her watch before exchanging concerned looks with her mother who merely shrugged as Nan started to argue with Dave about who it was had the drink problem in the family.

Molly did a fairly good job of looking innocent as she pretended that she hadn't done anything of the sort when her father shouted for her to take that look off of her face, that yeah it was a bit early but it was bloody Christmas for god's sake and what was wrong with having a drink at Christmas, so that Charles put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it in silent reassurance. He could almost taste the way the atmosphere in the kitchen had changed with the mention of booze and could feel the tension in her which reminded him forcibly of all the stories she'd told him long ago about her dad and what he was like when he'd had a drink. Dave offered him a beer which was welcome and which he accepted with a polite nod and smile as Belinda went back to hustling and bustling, picking things up and putting them down and dodging round them where they were apparently standing in her way before tutting loudly with a worried frown on her face. She was apparently unhappy about whether or not everything was going to be cooked enough and not overcooked and that their table wasn't big enough for putting stuff in serving dishes when there were so many of them to sit down and that there was no starters because of the kids not eating that sort of stuff, taking frequent gulps at her glass of gin wasn't doing much to help her either, except for adding significantly to the flush on her face.

She kept doing this worried little shake of her head and saying that dinner was just about ready and she was going to have to serve it straight onto the plates but she didn't know whether to get on and do it because she still didn't know what was happening with Shazza cos she could only get her voice mail when she rang and now she was worried that the other woman was alright. Molly tried very hard to hide how annoyed she was, there was nothing funny about any of it anymore. It was really nice of her mum to have even asked her, seeing as how, and the least she could of done was phone and let her know whether she was going to pitch up to eat that vegetarian shit she'd got for her, no-one else was going to eat it that was for sure.

To say she was annoyed was an understatement, she was bloody furious and doing her best not to let it show but her glass of wine seemed to have emptied itself in record time which didn't help as she held it out to Dave for a re-fill even though she'd sort of planned on pacing herself. The second glass had the effect of making her want to phone _whatsit_ herself and leave an extremely _shitty_ message about manners, even though far as the family were concerned no news of her was bloody good news.

"Mum, you dish up and Charles and I will take the plates through and someone needs to get the little bleeders up to the table, Bella can do that"

"Bossy cow, why me?"

"No it's alright Molls, Bella can help carry the plates through, yer Dad can get the kids up to the table 'n Charles can go and sit down, he's a guest"

"Mum, Bels' has got a 'angover so she'll most likely drop 'em 'n Charles don't mind, do you?"

"No, of course not, come on Belinda I'd like to help"

"Well, if you're sure, thank you, oh think that's 'er now, that's Shazza now"

"Oh good" Nan's tone couldn't be mistaken for anything other than heavily sarcastic "Thought she was gonna phone first, give us some warning"

Nan picked up her glass and the bottle of gin and marched out of the kitchen, she had absolutely no intention of saying 'Hello' or 'Merry Christmas' or even 'Happy Holidays' or whatever was the _right_ thing. The others followed, none of them in the least bit interested in staying to hear what had made her late, except perhaps for Charles, whose curiosity was now somewhere approaching fever pitch.

"Nothing for it, we'll have to get our Charles 'ere to find us a 'itman"

"What?" Molly had no idea what Nan was on about, she suspected the gin "How much of that 'ave you had Nan? Why the fu… why would Charles know how find a hitmen"

"Well, you know, what with him being summat special in the army 'n all he's bound to know where to find a good 'un"

Molly looked at her, completely bewildered "What do you mean some'ing special?"

She could see why Nan would want to hire one, she thought it was quite a good idea herself, but not why she would think Charles would know where to find one just because he was in the army. There was an equally puzzled look on his face as he raised his eyebrows and gave a small shake of his head, then turned to Nan and pinned on a contrite grin.

"I'm sorry Marge but I'm afraid I don't know any, I am in the army, but I'm an … officer ….. not in Special Forces or SAS or anything"

"What, you're in the bloody army?" Dave turned to look at Molly "Does your mother know? Did you know?" He looked across at Nan who shrugged, she'd only known for the last hour but wasn't about to admit that to Dave "Cos no-one's said anything to me" He turned back to Molly "Dunno, don't get it, why the bloody army? First of all there's you, and now you're with him"

He sounded completely mystified and faintly horrified, as if he'd just been told that Charles had been locked up for some desperately serious crime, almost as though his name was on a register somewhere …

"DAD" Molly paused "For fuck sake, it's not a big deal, yeah Charles is in the army, so what? He's been a friend of mine for …. we've known each other for … well, for a long time now, ever since the first time I went to Afghan … he was me boss"

"Your Boss? Charles 'ere is your boss? Molls?" He shook his head "…"Is that what was wrong with young Adam, was it that he wasn't in the bloody army?" Dave shook his head "Can see why he never stood a chance now, not if you've got with your Boss"

"Don't be a twat, Dad, course he's not me boss anymore …. and he hasn't got anything to do with ….. well, him and me has got nothing to do with what happened with me and Adam" She was bending the truth but the truth would be incredibly difficult to explain and she would need to help her mum get the dinner on the table any second, well they both would, and anyway she didn't know where to start and didn't consider it was any of his business anyhow "I mean I know that you like Adam, Dad, and that's fine, I do too, but Adam and me …. well, we was never gonna work were we?"

"Why not? Well course not if you was carrying on with Charles 'ere at the same time"

"It wasn't like that at all Mr Dawes …" Charles had heard enough and at the risk of upsetting things he leaned forward to speak to Dave "Molly and I …. yes, we were together for a short time after we got back from Afghan but not while I was her boss and definitely not when she met Adam, things between us had gone ….. wrong …. before she got married, before she even knew him, and we'd lost touch, we only got together again a few weeks ago when Molly and Adam were already getting divorced" He put his hand on her knee and spoke in a quiet aside "It's okay Dawsey, you don't need to go into battle with your dad to defend us, to defend me"

"I know that, but it's not fair, Adam and me going to shit weren't your fault, it had nothin' to do with you, it weren't like that, Dad, you've got it all wrong"

"Yeah course he 'as, that's the thing about yer Dad innit? He's really good at getting it wrong. Just leave 'er alone Dave, leave them alone, what's gone on with her and Adam is none of our bloody business is it? And whether you like Adam or not, she's right you know, she can't stay with him just to please you and anyone with half a brain could see she don't love 'im, not the way she should. Now, what's done's done, so let's go and get the food on the table while it's still hot, don't s'pose whatsits in there will put herself out to help" Nan got to her feet "Charles 'ere hasn't had the pleasure yet has he? And you can stop your sniggering lady" She waved her finger at Bella as she left the room "He knows what I mean"

"I love your Nan, she's fucking brilliant"

"I know"

-OG-

Charles was surprised to find that Shazza was actually small, almost as tiny as Molly, but unlike Molly, she was very plain with the sort of passive aggressive manner that a lot of women he'd worked with in the army adopted, especially those who lacked in confidence but made up for it by being bloody difficult to get along with.

A deeply unbecoming flush of scarlet self-consciousness crept up her neck and into her face as Molly did the honours and introduced him so that he could see she was thoroughly uncomfortable when he looked at her and smiled and said 'Hello, nice to meet you'. He was also painfully aware of Molly standing behind him doing her absolute best not to snigger her amusement at the look that appeared on Shazza's face.

"She fancies you, play your bloody cards right 'n you could be in there, you'd better sit next to 'er after all" She'd grabbed hold of his arm and whispered with a great deal of glee as they ferried plates of food through from the kitchen "Nan was sure she batted for the other team, but I think she's got that wrong"

"Heaven forbid …. and bloody stop laughing it's not funny"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Was thinking of shortening this (the longest Christmas Day in the history of FF) but decided to keep away from the delete and keep it as it is, the next chapter will start with lunch ….**_

 _ **I hope everyone in the real world had a lovely Christmas, those two days seem to fly by for some reason and it's hard to believe all that preparation and then it's gone … until we start again next weekend of course …. and the credit card bills start to drop through the letterbox – eeeek ! Update in a couple of days- hope you enjoyed this, let me know if you want me to speed up the rest of the day.**_


	20. Chapter 20

Eleven people sitting down to eat together didn't really fit round their table. Chairs rammed up against other chairs, some of them at totally the wrong height, kids all whinging loudly about not having enough room and why was it them had to sit by the leg and why couldn't someone else sit there cos they couldn't swing their legs so they were kicking the table legs and, if they could reach, out of each other and then saying they weren't doing it on purpose so it wasn't their fault. And there were elbows flying and sly pinches being dished out until, Christmas or no Christmas, Belinda's patience finally snapped and she yelled at them all to stop or else and Dave simply ignored it all.

"This is nice, innit?" Belinda looked round the table with the sort of hopeful smile on her face that said even she wasn't sure she believed it "It's lovely you being 'ere Molls ….. and Charles of course, it's really nice to 'ave you 'ere 'n all"

"It's lovely Mum"

Dave didn't appear to notice that Charles was speaking, that he was trying to thank Belinda for inviting him when Dave started to talk at the same time, his face a picture of bewilderment and suspicion; he had now convinced himself that he was the only one who hadn't known.

"Did you know he was another one in the fuckin' army?"

"Is he? Nah, Molls never said, Molls? ….. still that's nice innit? Means they got stuff in common, things to talk about" Belinda gave another tentative smile in Charles' direction "So, that's where you met? I wondered"

"Yeah, Mum, sort of, well yeah we did, but it was a long time ago now, he was me Boss in Afghan 'n we sort of made friends then"

"Dave, thought you was gonna stop with all the bollocks about the army" Nan scowled across the table, disapproval written all over her as she muttered that it would be good if he could do everyone a bleeding favour for once in his life and shut his bloody gob, but she said it just loud enough for him to hear every word, so that he opened his mouth ready to argue the toss before he caught sight of the look on Belinda's face and thought better of saying any of it. She was trying to deflect everyone's attention by exhorting them to not let their dinners get cold, to tuck in while it was still hot so that silence reigned for a few minutes as they all did as she said and began to eat, or in Dave's case to ignore the food on the plate in front of him in favour of his third beer which disappeared as fast as the previous two had done. Charles metaphorically raised his eyebrows to himself; used as he was to the speed that squaddies can put it away, Dave Dawes was in a different class altogether.

"Nice for you to get home and see your family this year Molly, I expect it's a real treat not to be sent away somewhere at Christmas, this time of year makes it all worse somehow"

Shazza's self-consciousness hadn't lasted long enough for her to keep her opinions to herself. She'd ended up sitting between Belinda and Martin, one of the least popular seats at any time because the youngest of the Dawes children had a horrible habit of chewing his vegetables to a mush with his mouth wide open and then spitting out anything he didn't like the taste of, which was most of it, so that usually they'd all be yelling at Belinda to make him stop. It was fairly disgusting so they certainly wouldn't normally expect a guest to sit there.

"Make what worse? What you talking about? I mean, yeah it's nice to be home 'n see everyone, course it is, but being in the army at Christmas is a lot of fun 'n all, well it is when you're away, not so bloody hot when you're stuck at barracks on guard duty like I was last year ... cos then it's pretty bloody boring"

Charles had the feeling that Molly wouldn't have agreed with Shazza as a matter of principle as she turned to look at him "Remember Christmas in the FOB?" Her green eyes lit up at the memory as she giggled so that he wondered what she'd say if he told her, and the rest of them, how much of that day he'd spent watching her, how envious he'd been of the way Smurf and the other lads had all been messing around teasing her and laughing with her when he couldn't "You wearing that Santa hat and serving us our turkey and stuffing 'n that"

"I remember, how could I possibly bloody forget? I remember the Brussel sprouts were like bullets, not to mention the mince pies, God, they really hurt"

"Hurt?"

Belinda sounded as puzzled as she felt, she had no idea what they were talking about as she looked at Molly and then at the lovely looking young bloke who was sitting there next to her, this bloke that they'd never even heard of until couple of days back although it seemed like they'd known each other for years, and who was looking at Molls with this lovely smile on his face. She felt this pang of … something … she wasn't quite sure what, but something that was missing for her these days as she smiled at the way the two of them looked at each other and laughed before he leaned in and kissed her on her cheek.

"I don't get it, how can Brussels hurt? Or mince pies?"

"Did they? Sorry" Molly wrinkled her nose at him ignoring Belinda before looking across at her mum and giggling "We threw 'em at 'im, Mum"

"What? Why would you throw food at him? Why?" She leaned forward to look around the table at the children who were listening with open-mouthed rapt attention "And before you lot even think of doing that, DON'T"

"It's tradition Belinda, Officers like me, we serve Christmas dinner to the men …... and women" He smiled at Molly "And then the …. the little ... so-and-so's pelt the ….. poor bu… bloke with bits of food, you have never seen a mess like it in your life" Charles was being very careful about what he said and especially careful of his language, conscious of children at the table as he turned back to look at Molly again with a wide smirk on his face "And you? you were one of the worst, had the best aim with the mince pies if I remember rightly"

"Did I? Me?" She tried hard to make her voice sound as if she was shocked and then that he'd offended her "You sure? Nah, you're just sayin' that, you couldn't 'ave known who threw what"

There was actually an answer to that question but he had no intention of sharing it with the audience, there was no way he was going to tell everyone that he'd known exactly what she'd thrown at him because his eyes had been following her all day, he hadn't been able to take them off her, not once.

"Indeed I did, and it's true about your aim"

"Said I was sorry" She tried and failed to look contrite "I think they leave the Brussels all 'ard when they cook 'em, make sure they hurt when they hit the Rupert, and their pastry is usually lovely, just not that ... stuff ... no-one's gonna eat it like that are they?"

"What's a Rupert?" Bella leaned forward in order to shout down the table at her sister so that Molly turned in her direction and jerked her head indicating Charles as she shouted back over the racket of the kids bickering about something "'im"

"Oh"

"Did I hear you say you were sorry? Stop laughing then and say it as if you mean it"

She wrinkled her nose at him again and mouthed 'fuck off' before laughing as he threw his head back and shouted with laughter; contrary to all his earlier expectations, especially when Dave had started having a go about the army, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

The expression on Shazza's face as she listened suggested that she was very far from enjoying herself, that she had in fact been sucking lemons as she watched the two of them sitting together across the table from her in a happy bubble of reminiscence. His good looks made her uncomfortable and self-conscious, as attractive men always did, but she was genuinely mystified about how any of it was amusing and was making no secret of the fact that she deeply disapproved of grown adults off fighting some war that she also deeply disapproved of, behaving like naughty children. She simply didn't understand any of it at all.

"I can't believe that a girl like you Molly would join in with that sort of thing, it seems so … childish somehow for someone who was there to look after people as a ... what do you call it, a medic?"

"What do you mean girls like me? and why wouldn't I? Being a medic makes no bleedin' odds, I mean we was all just one of the lads even if some of us was girls, well actually I was the only one in our section, but still …." She shrugged "There's no room in the army for people treating you any different just cos you're a girl ... isn't that right Boss?"

"Yup, I clearly remember you telling me that" He smirked then leaned sideways to half-whisper "And you promised to stop calling me Boss, remember?"

"I did, didn't I?" She smirked then turned back to Shazza "And it weren't being childish, you 'eard what 'e said, it's tradition"

At that moment Shazza was far too busy putting her hand over her glass to pay any real attention to what Molly was saying as she refused to let Dave pour her wine which he in turn kept insisting would do her good despite her adamant assertion that she didn't touch alcohol of any sort at any time, that she didn't see the need for artificial stimulants of that sort, so that Charles took one look at Molly's face and tried his best to change the subject.

"Indeed it is, now shut up and do as your mum says, eat your dinner"

"Yes Boss"

"What about your mum and dad, Charles, do they mind you not going home to see them for Christmas?"

Belinda was also desperate to find a topic of conversation that would stop the war that was in danger of breaking out between her friend and her eldest daughter, who had that _look_ on her face, the one her mother knew spelled trouble, so that she didn't stop to think that it might sound like he wasn't welcome until after she'd said it, so that she blushed with embarrassment and wanted to kick herself. It was just that she was bitterly regretting the impulse that had led to her inviting Shazza to join them for dinner. She knew Molly didn't like her, well none of her kids did, or her mum, or Dave for that matter, but at the time she'd done it she hadn't known Molly would be home for the day, let alone that she'd be bringing someone with her, in fact she'd have put money on that not happening. It wouldn't be so bad if Shaz would just stop with all her anti-this and anti-that crap; it never sounded as bad when they were in the staff room at work and she started going on about something, mind that was probably because there was some of them there agreed with her, not all, not by any means, but Belinda usually kept her mouth shut and said nothing. It was just that it felt like Shaz was being rude when they was all there sat there having a drink, and what with Charles sitting there and him being in the army 'n that like Molls …..

"No they're fine with it, Belinda, they're used to me being away and Molly and I are going down to stay for a couple of days over New Year"

"That's nice ... Molls never said"

Molly shrugged and smiled and nudged him surreptitiously with her elbow. She wanted to say that that would be because Molly didn't know and that this was the first she'd fucking heard of it, which would be because he'd just made it up and she knew that he'd just made it up because his parents were off to Lake Garda day after Boxing day, he'd told her that over and over. Still least he hadn't told her mum that she'd spent Christmas in Bath couple of years back, she couldn't remember now whether she'd warned him not to say anything about it, but she forgot sometimes that he had the memory of a bloody elephant.

"Charles, 'ere just had a thought, if you two was together in Afghan, that means you knew our Smurfy, now he was a good 'un, shame he had to die like that after all he went through 'n all, and he was so bloody young" Nan leaned forward to look down the table at Charles who smiled and nodded at her in silent acknowledgment that yes she was right, that yes of course he'd known Smurf, but that he really didn't want to get into it, not right at that moment. Talking about what happened with the three of them in Afghanistan was likely to make Molly's happy mood disappear in the blink of an eye.

"The Smurfoid?" Charles smiled, a non-committal look on his face "Yup, it was all of those things, very sad"

"You used to call him best recruit at Catterick, didn't you? Pissed me right off, especially when you called me a Doris"

"I know, sorry ... I'm glad you've forgiven me"

"You're sorry? Can I 'ave that in writing Boss?"

"Nope"

Nan realised somewhat belatedly that bringing Smurf's name into the conversation was more than likely to wipe the happy grin off her granddaughter's face, something she hadn't thought of when she'd opened her mouth like that, and that was definitely something she didn't want, it was a very long time since she'd last seen her Molls look as happy.

"Still, a while ago now wasn't it? Water under the bridge 'n all that ..."

"Yeah it was" Molly smiled at Nan. It was obvious to her that Nan regretted saying anything and wanted to change the subject, as she turned to Charles and laughed "I thought you was pretty bloody ..." She paused knowing he'd be wondering what on earth she was going to say next, whether she was going to tell her family about the way he'd bullied her the first few days they'd known each other "Tall"

"And I thought you had the loveliest smile I'd ever seen, not that you were smiling at me of course ..." He laughed with a certain amount of relief that she hadn't said a word about him threatening to lob her out of the plane "And lovely eyes"

"Did you? Never knew that" Molly sounded as surprised as she felt.

"Always surprised me that, our Molls sticking with it in the bloody army, she was never one for rules and regulations"

Dave grinned at her as he went round the table to top up glasses and Charles considered for a moment doing a Shazza and putting his hand over the top of his because Dave's answer to his 'No, no more for me, thanks, I'm driving' was a simple 'Go on son, one more won't hurt you' before re-filling his glass to the brim. Reluctant as he was to alienate Dave, who appeared to take any refusal of a drink as a personal insult which was liable to set him off again on his pro-Adam anti-army rant, he needed to remember that he'd already had more than the one glass of wine that he usually allowed himself when he was driving, not to mention the beer.

"Tell me about it, Mr Dawes, she never did anything she was bloody told"

"Did ... sometimes"

"Me name's Dave, son"

"I thought you had to obey orders in the army" Shazza was still mystified "I didn't know you could do as you like"

"You can't, but it does sorta depend on who you get as a boss ... "

"Hmmmm, otherwise you get yourself put on a charge"

"Do you?" Molly giggled.

Belinda found herself watching and listening and absently thinking about Adam. She and Dave had been very unhappy when Molly had told them her marriage was done and Belinda had, like Dave, been bloody furious with her for not sticking with it, for not trying harder and giving up on Adam the way she had. But now, as she watched her with him, with Charles, it felt like she'd been wrong. Yeah, it seemed like he was a lot older than their Molls, which was definitely a bit of a worry, but it didn't actually matter what they thought, Molly was going to do what she wanted, and that looked like it was him.

-OG-

Dinner had come to an end with kids bickering over plastic crap from the crackers and Dave's insistence on everyone listening to him read out the lame jokes and with Molly insisting that Charles had to wear a purple paper hat to match hers, giggling and telling him that he looked cute in it after he'd told her, and meant it, that she looked beautiful in hers.

They were left with the wreckage of the meal on the table which Belinda insisted she would sort as Bella and Jade slid off quietly vanishing while Nan was insisting she'd help as soon as the Queen was done, then looking pointedly at Shazza who'd carried precisely one plate through to the kitchen before informing them that she had to go, she was helping out at some charity for the homeless.

"Anyone would think poor buggers 'adn't got enough to worry about already" Nan spoke in a quiet aside to Molly so that they both sniggered loudly and Belinda frowned a warning at them before going to see Shazza out or as Nan put it "Make bloody sure she actually pisses off" before going through to annoy Dave by putting the television on.

"You okay? I'd make me own coffee if I was you, at least you'll be able to swallow it"

She didn't turn round as she put tea bags in mugs just breathed out a sigh as she leaned back against him, enjoying the feel of the solid weight of his body as he snaked his arms round her waist and nuzzled her hair at the back of her neck before doing his best to push it to one side with his chin so he could kiss her skin.

"Unless you wanna go 'ome?" She tried to twist her head round to look up at his face, then gave up as he tightened his hold on her.

"Nope, have to sober up a bit before I drive"

"Sorry thought I'd warned you me dad's a knob and won't take no for a bleedin' answer, that he'd keep on insisting"

"You did, my fault I shouldn't have drunk it so stop worrying, it's been lovely ... your family are lovely"

"Now I know you're bloody lying ... they're a lot of things, mostly bonkers things, but ... lovely? Don't think so"

"I've never told you a lie, not once"

"Nah? What was that then when you said we was going down to your mum's to spend New Year, that was a lie"

"No it wasn't, I didn't say we were going to see them, I said we were going to Bath" He turned her round to face him and tucked her hair behind her ears "They're away so the house will be empty, I thought it'd remind you of ... old times ... we can spend four days in bed, what do you reckon?"

"Dunno, need to think 'bout it" She paused for less than ten seconds and then snuggled into his chest, nestling her head against him so that he bent and kissed the top of her head "Okay, I've thought, sounds pretty bloody good to me"

"Come on you two, where's this bloody tea then? Hurry up, nearly time for the Queen" Nan hadn't bothered to cough or clear her throat or to do anything to herald her imminent arrival in the kitchen but had just bustled in "Put 'im down, remember what happened with your granddad"

"Nah ... what happened with him?"

"Ask your mother"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Hope everyone had a lovely Xmas and that you all have a wonderful New Year - This Chapter has been done (or re-done) on my new laptop which I have finally mastered (how impressed am I at myself?) bearing in mind that the bl**dy ate all this chapter when I transferred it over (Okay might have been me having finger trouble ... maybe). Thank you for taking the time to review, I do hope you are not getting bored with the real-time progress of Xmas Day – Chapter 21 will take us into Xmas night ...**_

 _ **Have just found the missing Chapter 20 (a bit late) – filed it on the wrong directory so am definitely going to take Natalie's advice and use a memory stick in future, told you I was getting all up to speed – even with some of the techie jargon xx**_


	21. Chapter 21

"Be nice ... she's alright when you get to know her ... she means well you know"

"Yeah you said ... " Molly pulled a face. She was busy ploughing through a huge heap of the washing up while Belinda dried and stacked the clean stuff on the table and Charles traipsed backwards and forwards transporting the debris from the dining room "Did you see the way she was looking at 'im? Cow"

"'spect a lot of women look at 'im like that Molls, eh?"

"What, like they're pervin' ... Well, yeah, s'pose they do really, but ... don't mean I 'ave to like it when someone does it right in front of me, does it?"

"He didn't take no notice did he?"

"Well, nah ... s'pose not, still ... "

He'd absolutely insisted on helping clear up from lunch so was ferrying piles of plates and bowls and cutlery and dead crackers not to mention what seemed like dozens of glasses with dregs of wine in the bottom through to the kitchen in spite of all Belinda's blushing protestations that he didn't have to and that it was really, really kind of him, thoughtful, but that she'd manage. She'd get the girls to come down and help while he went through and sat down and took Molls with him or she could always get the lazy bugger asleep on the sofa to get his arse into gear and give her a hand if she needed help.

"That'd be a first" Molly nibbled at her bottom lip and rolled her eyes at the way her mother was trying so hard to avoid admitting that Dave was a useless waste of space. Years of practice had made defending him her default position, no matter what and no matter who she was talking to "Never 'as before, 'as he Mum? And Charles don't mind helping,he said didn't he? He said he wanted to"

"I know, but he's dead polite inne? He's got them lovely manners ... 'n I'm sure yer dad would help if I asked him"

"Are you? I'm not and yeah, Charles is ... polite ...but he wouldn't offer if he didn't mean it, Mum" Molly crossed her fingers in the washing up water as she said it, she had no idea really if what she'd just said was true, still it sounded good "You shouldn't have to ask though should you? I mean you did all the cooking so you shouldn't 'ave to clear up 'n all" Molly put her wet soapy hand on her mother's shoulder and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek "It was lovely Mum, thanks"

"Indeed it was" Charles put another pile of dishes on the side by the sink and nodded his head indicating their presence to Molly before turning to smile at Belinda "Thank you, Molly's absolutely right, it was lovely" He sounded thoroughly sincere, as if he meant every word, which bought a quick rush of heat to her cheeks again, this time with pleasure as he gave his signature snort of laughter "Not a hard sprout or concrete mince pie in sight"

"You're welcome ... now stop going on you two" Belinda had drunk enough alcohol to feel a tiny bit emotional, a little bit tearful which showed in her voice when she spoke "It's times like these when I really miss you Molls ... miss the way you always 'elp"

"Thanks, bloody glad someone misses me for some'ing even if it just the bleedin' washing up"

"Oh nah, nah, didn't mean it like that, did I? You know ..."

"I'm joking Mum, 'n I miss all of you 'n all, well except for me dad ... obviously ... now you gonna stop being soppy or you'll 'ave me bawling" Molly turned back to the washing up as Nan reappeared huffing loudly and muttering about how Dave lying there snoring through the Queen was bleeding disrespectful and how when she was young everyone used to sit down and listen on the radio together if they didn't have a tele, which had certainly been true in her house.

"Wasn't it a bit uncomfortable all of you sitting on the radio?" Molly giggled as Nan glared in her direction, obviously unappreciative of her granddaughter's slightly pissed attempt at humour "Sorry, so what did Her Maj have to say then, Nan, good speech was it?"

"You can stop being bleedin' disrespectful 'n all young lady, there's nothing to laugh at, and it was a good speech as it happens, well what I could hear of it above that twat in there with 'is snoring" Nan shook her head at Molly's attempts to curtail her desperate need to giggle "I admire her, the Queen, she might be knocking on a bit now, but she still keeps on going, don't she? And she has to be bleedin' sick of all that shite by now, still who's gonna take over if she decides to 'ang up 'er crown, take it easy for a bit?"

"Charles? Prince Charles? He's next"

Nan snorted and rolled her eyes showing very plainly what she thought of that suggestion and began to sort the cutlery out rattling it together loudly as she put it away in the drawer.

"Nah, not 'im, she knows he'd be too busy talking to the bleedin' trees or whatever it is he does, I think she's waiting for young Wills meself"

-OG-

Nan's seriously huffy exit from the fresh explosion of giggles in the kitchen was accompanied by her muttered rant about how she hoped they'd treat her with more respect when she got to the same age as the Queen which left Belinda and Molly laughing even harder as Belinda called out to ask her how old Lizzie was now and what did Nan reckon were her chances of making it that far, a response that Nan chose to ignore.

"'ere, get that down you"

It wasn't quite clear whether Nan was speaking to both of them or to one of them in particular as she returned with the bottle of Baileys she'd hidden from Dave in her bag, making it's provenance somewhat dubious, and slopped generous measures into three large glasses, before sitting down at the table and indicating them with a nod of her head "Like old times innit?"

"No thanks, I don't think I'd better have any more, 'spect Charles will wanna go in a minute" Molly picked up the glass and swirled the thick creamy liquid round it watching as it clung to the sides. She was longing to put ice in it and drink it, but knew that that wasn't a very good idea, she was already about one drink away from flying "Where is he, anyhow? I seem to 'ave lost 'im"

"He's in the other room, got hisself caught by yer dad who's talking his usual bollocks about summat, football or getting fit or some other load of shite he knows nothin' about" Nan took a deep swallow of her Baileys "Don't think yer dad is actually sure what they're talking about, he's scratching 'is head, still ... gives his balls a rest I s'pose"

"Nan!"

"Look at this Charlie, what did I tell you, coven back together ... oh ... and on the bloody Baileys 'n all"

Dave slapped Charles on the back as he appeared in the kitchen, empty glass in one hand and waving his other arm in the general direction of the three of them sitting at the table. To Charles, Dave seemed remarkably coherent for someone who'd put away the amount that he had in the last few hours, if the boot had been on the other foot he'd have been fast asleep on the floor by now. He winked at Molly and gave a deprecating shrug as she mouthed " _Charlie?_ " at him, before putting her head down on the table and laughing like a drain so that despite the full glass in front of her he was slightly suspicious that her flushed cheeks and sparkly eyes meant that she was the one liable to be fast asleep on the floor in a minute.

Dave was still in his best expansive host mood, determined to forget all about Adam and to have male company as he topped up his blood alcohol level "Now, what you gonna 'ave, son?"

"No thanks, Dave, thank you but no, really, I shouldn't have any more, not when I'm driving"

"Oh rubbish, another one now won't hurt, long time till you need to worry about driving anywhere"

"You could stay over, pair of you?" Belinda looked hopefully at Molly who was instantly horrified at the mere idea, she'd been calculating how long there was to go before they could piss off home, to his obviously, not back to barracks "We've hardly seen you ... and then Charles 'ere can 'ave another drink"

"Nah Mum, we can't" Molly shook her head emphatically, trying to give Charles the message that she'd rather have her eyes gouged out with a rusty nail, but he had that oh so familiar look on his face, the masked non-committal one that she couldn't read even now after all this time "There's hardly enough room in that bunk for me, let alone him, 'ave you seen 'ow tall he is?"

"Nah, don't mean that, you and Charles, you can go in mine and I'll have the bunk"

"We can't do that" She was screaming _nah, nah, not on your bleedin' life_ in her head as she clutched at straws "What about Dad, where will he sleep?"

"Where he usually does, he can stop downstairs on the sofa and drink himself stupid ..."

"What more stupid than he is already?" Nan swallowed the last of her Baileys as she looked round the room and ignored Dave's muttered 'Harpie'. Molly and Charles exchanged resigned shrugs and grinned at each other, more a horrified grimace than anything else in Molly's case, but it looked very much as if the decision as to whether they were staying or not had just been made for them; even if the outcome of the discussion wasn't quite the one she wanted.

"Oi give us that back" She reached across the table and snatched the glass of Baileys back from her father who'd moved it towards himself and then promptly forgot all about her resolution and took a hearty swig without bothering about adding ice ...

"Right I'm off, wanna watch me soaps without him giving me the benefit of his opinion"

"I'll walk you home, Marge, just let me get my coat"

"What?" Dave was appalled, he had no wish to lose his new-found male drinking buddy "Nah, no need it's only round the bleedin' corner and she knows the way, bloody should by now she's here every bleedin' day"

"Dave? Shut up" Belinda kissed her mother on her cheek "Take no notice, Mum, I'll get yer coat 'n I'll see you tomorrow"

"Wait a minute, I'll get mine 'n I'll come with you"

"You don't have to, stay here in the warm" He smirked as Molly raised her eyebrows and grinned before leaning forward to whisper that she'd best come with him, just to make sure he didn't do a runner and leave her there on her own and anyhow there was no way she trusted her Nan not to kidnap him.

"Can't get very far can I? You've got the car keys"

"Oh yeah, 'ave, 'aven't I? Go on then, piss off"

"Lovely"

Nan had said her goodbyes and behave yourselves to the kids, something that was said more in hope than in any real expectation, as Charles stood by the door and looked at the floor as he waited patiently for her to be ready. "Come on, then if you're coming" she preceded him out of the door as he held it open and she offered a silent little prayer that all them nosy buggers who were her neighbours in the flats would see him walking her home to hers...

-OG-

"Here, hold my arm, it's slippery"

Nan didn't need any more of an invitation to slide her arm through his as they walked along the very icy pavements. It had started to snow again, but in tiny icy little pellets not big fluffy snowflakes so that Charles wasn't sorry that he wasn't about to set off on a long drive down the M3. It was bitterly cold.

"You know, you don't wanna take no notice of all that bollocks our Dave keeps spouting about young Adam and our Molls, I mean he's a nice enough bloke, but it were never gonna last" Nan tightened her hold on his arm in a sort of reassuring squeeze as he looked down at her "She never loved him like she should and you don't need to take no bloody notice of the way she is, you know, all that 'tough as old boots 'n hard as nails' cobblers that she comes out with, she's soft as butter underneath, just worried about showing it, and that's 'is fault ... Dave"

"I know"

There was a lot that he wanted to say but couldn't, he was worried that Nan would repeat it to Belinda, who would almost certainly tell Molly, and that she would never ever forgive him if she thought he'd been talking about her to her Nan behind her back, no matter what it was he said.

"Smurfy ... now, he was a good 'un but she didn't love 'im, and Adam, he's the same and you can't stop with someone you don't love just to please everyone else, can you? 'ere, this is me..."

Charles waited while she sorted out the right key and opened her front door and turned, ready to thank him for walking her home, a real novelty as far as Marge was concerned, when a thought struck her which made her look swiftly up at his face.

"I've just realised summat, you're 'im, aren't you? The one that that corporal geezer was talking about at the medal thing, the one that recommended our Molls, that's you innit? You was hurt, I remember 'im sayin now"

"Yup, that's me, but ..." Charles tugged at the curls on the back of his neck "Molly and I being friends had nothing to do with me recommending her for that medal, she got that because she was ... is ... awesome ... "

"Did I say it had? Nah course not and she is ... just don't you forget it, and remember to be a good 'un" Nan patted him on the arm "If you do anything to hurt her I swear to god you'll have me to deal with"

"I would never do anything to hurt her"

"Glad to hear it"

He had no idea what Molly had told them about her exploits in Afghan or her part in his survival, he was beginning to think that she'd said nothing, and she obviously hadn't said a word to any of them about the way their relationship had gone to shit, or about what part that had played in her Las Vegas disaster of marrying bloody Adam or about them meeting up again in Yemen or anything else at all about their shared history. He could picture her little face when he'd stood in front of the mess tent with her at Bastion and delivered a lecture her about needing to keep their friendship secret, Jesus she could give him bloody lessons in it.

-OG-

" _Lay your head against my pillow_

 _Hold your warm and tender body next to mine ..."_

He and Dave, who had a surprisingly good voice, had been singing along to Elvis most of the evening by the lights of the Christmas tree even though Dave had kept on insisting that he wanted to put the main light on so he could see his glass properly which had made Belinda snort and tell him to sniff and he'd find it, he was like one of the drugs dogs as far as alcohol was concerned, could find it anywhere.

"Must go on a diet"

"No, what you must do is sit still"

They had been dancing but she was now sitting on his lap and wriggling around trying to get comfortable so that he lifted her hair and whispered, somewhat concerned that her parents would hear him, even though they were still smooching to the music in a little world of their own. Belinda was slow dancing with her eyes shut and Dave was swaying from one foot to the other and saying it reminded him of some long forgotten party or other.

"If you keep on shifting around like that I won't be able to get up at all ... and you don't need to go on a diet"

"Yeah I do, where the fuck do you keep all your fat?"

"What?"

"Well look at you" She ran her hands over his torso making him groan and whisper at her to stop it "You're all muscles and fit 'n that ... and me ... I'm gonna be a tub of lard after this lot" She tried hard to pinch up fat on her stomach "Most likely the Baileys and eating me own body weight in chocolate asn't 'elped much" She giggled against his neck which made a shiver run down his back "When we get back you're gonna be sitting in some nice warm office pushing a pen about and I'm gonna be outside on the parade with some bugger yelling at me to put some bloody effort in" Charles did his best not to laugh out loud at the disgruntled expression on her little face, tucking his tongue behind his front teeth before sucking in his bottom lip in a vain attempt to make it look as though he was taking her seriously "I might die"

"Don't do that, that would be a terrible waste, and what would I do without you? You know, I'm sorry I ever said that now, are you ever going to forgive me? It was a long time ago after all"

"Nah"

" _...you love me one more time_

 _For the good times ..."_

"Have you 'ad a good day?"

"Yep, the best, have you?"

"Yeah"

"Good, now let's go to bed" He decanted her gently from his lap and stood up, grimacing as he adjusted the front of his jeans "I think your parents are waiting for us to piss off and leave them to it"

"OH SHIT, they're not at it are they? I can't look"

"Nope, they're obviously waiting for us to disappear"

-OG-

He was sitting on the bed staring into space waiting for his turn to go to the bathroom, then looked up as the door opened and almost held his breath as she came in, mesmerised by her appearance in the half light of the bedside lamp so that he couldn't speak, couldn't think of what to say as he gulped and then swallowed hard.

"Here, come over here" He'd swung his legs round so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed as he pointed to a spot on the rug between his bare feet and did his best to smile at her. A wave of desire was threatening to swamp him at the sight of her in that West Ham top, the one he hadn't seen since the far off days in Afghan because she certainly hadn't worn it since they'd got back together, he'd have remembered. It had been the focus of so many of his ... dreams ... all that time ago when she used to wear it in the FOB.

"I used to think about this ... when I used to watch you walking around with nothing on underneath that shirt, I used to think about you, and me, and being alone in a bedroom with the door shut"

"Did you? How did you know what I was wearing under it, might have been wearing me vest and Bridget Jones knickers"

"Nope, not a bloody chance, not in my dreams you weren't, you were wearing those tiny little shorts that barely covered that gorgeous little arse of yours"

She could feel the way his hands were trembling as he ran them lightly up the outside of her legs and up her thighs to her hips, laughing softly as he pulled her closer to him in between his thighs, his pupils had darkened to the colour of bitter chocolate and were huge with desire.

-OG-

 **A/N:**

 **A/N:**

 **Thank you for your kind words, am glad that you are enjoying their Xmas, I can't begin to tell you how important your reviews are to me. Have now almost mastered the new technology (hmmm) why on earth they can't make all these blessed things work in the same way I can't imagine, but I am getting used to it slowly so I don't keep cursing out loud and using my repertoire of bad language quite as often as I did a week ago.**

 **Chapter 22 will follow shortly, just need to find a few euphemisms first ...**


	22. Chapter 22

His hand was still trembling a little as he cupped her face and hesitated slightly before kissing her slowly, lingering as he caught her bottom lip gently in his teeth. He was doing the very best he could to show her ... well, he wasn't entirely sure what he was trying to say except for wanting her badly, but then she already knew that, but he wanted her to know, wanted to show her just how incredibly sorry he was that he'd fucked it up between them. It didn't matter how often she'd told him that she'd got over it, that she knew he was sorry and that she believed him when he told her that it wouldn't happen again, there was still something there that said she didn't altogether trust him, trust in them. She was tough, or that was what she wanted everyone to believe, including him, but he knew just how vulnerable she was and that it was down to him.

Molly touched his wrist and then tightened her fingers around it so that he closed his eyes at her touch, eyelashes fanning out on his cheeks as he worried at his bottom lip with his tongue and teeth and then moved his hands to tangle them in her hair, paddling the fleshy tips of his fingers against her scalp and dropping little kisses on her eyelids, and then her cheekbones until finally he moved the hand she wasn't holding onto and cradled her face, his eyes still closed as he dotted butterfly kisses on the corners of her mouth. His pulse jumped and began to race under her fingers when she responded and moved slightly trying to capture his mouth to deepen the kiss, doing _her_ best to tell him that he mattered, that this whole relationship mattered to her in ways that she couldn't find the words to tell him.

"How am I doing?"

"Not bad, pulse is a bit iffy, but I think you'll live"

"Lovely ... I bloody hope so"

He swallowed hard and lifted his chin, throwing his head back and closing his eyes again as she began to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt, her tiny fingers fumbling with the buttonholes as she tried to undo them, so that he gulped and swallowed convulsively at her touch and then moved his hands to rest his weight on them when she finally managed to get the first couple undone and kissed the skin she'd exposed. It felt agonisingly slow to him, he wondered whether he would be better off sitting on his hands to stop himself brushing hers away and undoing the rest of the bloody things himself but managed to concentrate every bit of his considerable will-power on holding off and not pouncing. When she'd eventually got them undone and had pulled his shirt open ready to slide it off his arms she suddenly stopped and kissed a trail down his body, and then instead of carrying on taking his shirt off, turned her attention instead to trying to undo the button of his jeans, but the erection currently straining against his fly made it impossible for her to get the top button undone and the more she tried, the more she touched him, the more impossible it got.

"You gonna get these jeans off or what?"

"I'm going to have that printed on something then I can look at it when I'm not with you... when I'm in some hell-hole somewhere" He coloured slightly at way his comment changed the expression on her face, he hadn't meant to sound as if he was being sleazy, but rather than trying to explain what he had meant, he hastily turned his attention to putting his hands where hers had been ... and then struggled with the button himself the same way that she had before having to admit defeat "Wait a minute, I'll have to get up"

Her face immediately broke into a wide smirk as she put a hand out to help him pull his shirt off, throwing it on the floor and then just watching and giggled softly, her face alight with laughter at the difficulty he was having in getting the fly buttons of his jeans undone.

"What's funny? There's nothing funny ... stop laughing ... and don't you dare..."

"What? Don't dare what?"

"Say something about ... being too hard"

"Would I?"

"Yup"

His look of amusement was followed rapidly by a look of extreme discomfort, judging by the wince that crossed his face, when he finally managed to get a hand inside his jeans to adjust himself enough to get them off so that she stopped laughing, her grin slowly fading from her face. It was her turn to just stare. He was wearing the black stretchy trunks that she always found incredibly sexy, and which were now seriously bent out of shape at the front, and as always she got a bit of a shock when she saw him without his clothes masking his body. At how lean he was so that she badly wanted to just put her hands on him and to run them over his arms, his shoulders, his chest, she wanted to trace the faint smattering of dark hair and the skin that felt like satin where it was stretched over the defined muscles of his chest, muscles that were a testament to the hours that he spent running and getting fit, at the livid scar that was still very visible on his stomach, but most of all she wanted to tell him that she loved him just the way he was and to please not lose any more weight.

Without either of them saying another word he began to stroke the bare skin of her back underneath the West Ham \zmHamtop and then caressed her ribs with long slim fingers, lightly tracing them one by one until he finally moved down to her hips and pulled the top up and over her head, dropping it on the floor to join his shirt and jeans and leaving her standing in front of him, naked except for a tiny scrap of black lace knickers.

"What happened to the shorts?"

"Dunno, can't find them, most likely bloody Bella's nicked 'em ... Why? don't you like me moody knickers?"

"Oh yes, they're gorgeous, you look gorgeous ... you are gorgeous, I can 't believe how lucky I am to be here with you" Molly could feel the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks as she fought a sudden and overwhelming urge to cover herself with her hands; she had no idea why she should suddenly feel all shy, this was Charles for fuck sake so it wasn't like he hadn't seen her like this before, but she felt self-conscious for some reason, maybe because of the expression in his eyes "Moody? What does that mean?"

"Nan give them to me didn't she so that means they're most probably nicked from somewhere or other"

"What? They're stolen? You're telling me that you're wearing stolen property? In that case you'd better take them off or, I've got a better idea, I will"

Hooking his fingers into the thin sides of the offending 'moody' knickers and sliding them slowly down her legs without breaking eye contact with her was the catalyst for them to clutch at one another and to fall back onto her mother's bed, kissing frantically as though they couldn't get enough, his hands were sliding over her breasts, thumbs rubbing her nipples and then down her ribs as the friction of her thigh against his groin had him quietly groaning and pressing himself against her. Groans that got significantly louder as she slipped her hands inside the top of his trunks and slid them slowly down over his hips.

"We can't, you make too much noise, you'll wake the bloody house up and they'll all hear you, they'll know ..."

"It's not me that makes a lot of noise, it's you" He leaned forward again and smirked as he nibbled at her ear and then kissed round her neck towards her chin, kissing and nibbling gently at her throat and then laughed at the tiny whimpering noises that were escaping from her mouth "Okay we won't if you don't want to, if you're worried about being here in your parents' bedroom, but we can be quiet, you know, we can make sure they don't hear, anyway I'll bet they're far too busy downstairs ... playing Scrabble or whatever it is they're doing"

"Me Dad can't spell"

"Whatever they're playing, they're pretty bloody quiet"

He began to dot kisses down her body again, ignoring what they'd just agreed about not going any further, kissing and softly biting at her nipples as she arched herself against him and then kissing down to her hip bones and carrying on until his stubble was rasping against the soft skin on the inside of her thighs ... his hot breath was punctuated by little kisses as he moved back up to her mouth, 'shssing' her as she made involuntary little whimpers and begging noises that she hadn't known she was making.

His first thrust was hard, much harder than she was used to and harder than she'd expected so that the top of her head hit the headboard with a loud thud and the headboard banged hard against the wall.

"Sorry, oh god I'm sorry"

"Don't be" She giggled "Just do it again ... I mean, not like that, I mean you know what I mean, just don't stop ... we'll get on the floor if the bed bangs against the wall, but don't stop"

He moved with a slow and steady rhythm that was driving her so quickly to the edge that within a few minutes she was deliberately trying to delay the personal explosion that was building inside her and threatening to overwhelm her ... and then it would be over. And right at that moment she didn't want it to be over, not ever, she wanted it to last forever.

"Stop it, stop ..."

"I'm not doing anything"

"Yes you are, I know you are"

As he spoke she looked up at his face just in time to see him look at the ceiling and clench his teeth, almost as if he was praying and that was the moment the rolling thrust broke her so that she was biting at his shoulder and gripping him as tightly as she could, her body twisting and squeezing and shaking with pleasure that was boiling over as he started to shake in release and stopped moving, holding his breath as he came apart with his head buried against her neck. Neither of them had made a sound. His melting brown eyes suddenly seemed shy as he lifted his head and looked at her steadily without speaking until she raised her hand and stroked his cheek and he started to whisper against her neck.

"I just want to make you happy, you are all that matters to me, you do know that don't you?"

"Yeah, I know ... and you do, I am happy..."

"How much of you have I got Molly?"

"All of me ... it's just ..."

"Just what? I don't blame you if you don't trust me, or if you're not sure about how you feel? Go on please, be honest, tell me"

"Nah, it's not that, it's none of that, I thought I'd just showed you how I feel, I really thought you knew ... but I just wish it was all you know, like ... simple ... all sort of okay with everyone else"

"Has something upset you? Someone?"

"Nah, well... me mum said she thinks you're lovely but that you're much too old for me, think she thought you was dunno, about forty or some'ing, she was dead shocked when I said you wasn't and that it's only nine years, but she's sort of convinced herself that I'm your bit of rough and that you'll get fed up of me one day and move onto some posh bird that's more your age ... some blondie with legs up to her bloody armpits ... like Rebecca I s'pose" She pulled a face as he snorted with disbelief "I'm worried that everyone will ... well, that it's what people will think, I mean, you won't will you?"

"Lovely ... Of course not, fuck they must think I'm a capricious little shit"

"I'd tell you if I knew what one of them was"

"Someone who ... easily changes their mind when someone ... or something they think they want more comes along"

"And you're not?"

"Of course I'm not, I want you, I don't want anyone else, and anyway Marge would come after me and cut my dick off"

"Shit, did she threaten you?"

"No, well yes I suppose she did in a way, she told me I'd have her to deal with if I upset you"

"Shit ... meet the bloody Dawes family, east end mafia's got nothing on us"

Molly decided not to share her mother's other pearl of wisdom on the grounds that the idea would scare the shit out of him, pretty much as it had her. Belinda had begun with her usual mantra of how he'd make a really good dad until Molly pointed out that she said that about every bloke, she'd most likely say it about Jack the Ripper. Her mum was obviously living in the bleeding past if she thought getting yourself knocked up, sort of accidentally on purpose as she'd suggested, would make him stick around if it was time for him to move on. She didn't tell Belinda that Charles was already a dad; she didn't want to tell her anything about Sam ... or Rebecca. She didn't really need to know anything about any of that, even though Sam was incontrovertible evidence that life didn't always work out the way Belinda thought it did.

-OG-

He'd slept like the proverbial dead and was warm and comfortable but hadn't got a clue where he was when he came to with a start at the sound of one of the Dawes' children, possibly Martin, having the most glorious meltdown outside on the landing. The noise had him wide awake in seconds, while Molly slumbered peacefully next to him obviously immune to the racket and to the smell of bacon cooking which was making him very aware that his stomach was rumbling with hunger.

The first indication that she was no longer sleeping through the racket of the child screaming his head off and someone yelling at him to shut up while a door slammed shut, and "Fairytale of New York" was playing at full volume, was the way she shuffled across the few inches of bed that separated them to grind herself into his lap where he was spooned round her and then giggled quietly, making his morning erection even more insistent. He immediately forgot all about being hungry for bacon.

"Your tummy's rumbling, you 'ungry?"

"Nope, breakfast can fuck right off, I'm very comfortable here ... thanks very much"

He moved his arms round to cuddle her from behind, his hands lifting her breasts while he used his thumbs to make her nipples stand out like pebbles, and began kissing her neck under the waterfall of her hair as he pressed himself against the cheeks of her bum and began to move downwards, his intentions clear "Oi, what you doing? Nah, sorry we can't, we really can't, not unless you got a condom hiding somewhere, I'm 'ere with you in mum's bed and me pills are back at yours, should have taken one last night as it is, so it's condoms for us, sorry"

"I'll be careful"

"Course you will ... look, just stop it will you ... "

"Mum says you gotta get up and take Martin out to build a fuckin' snowman, you was the one that promised the little sod and it's not fair if I have to do ..."

"What the fuck? Bella ... don't you ever fuckin' knock? Fuck off, go on just fuck right off, you can't come barging in like that and ..."

"Get up then"

Her arrival in the bedroom without prior warning had necessitated an extremely hasty readjustment of the bedding and had left Molly scarlet with mortification and fury, embarrassed as fuck as she hid under the duvet and felt Charles shake with silent laughter as he hid his face in the back of her neck.

"Has she bloody gone yet? Jesus I'll swing for her and what the fuck did mum think she was doing, sending her up 'ere to get me?"

"Yep, she's gone, you can come out now" He pulled the duvet back from over her head and kissed the tip of her nose, his whole body still shaking with laughter "Lovely ... she's left the door wide open so I think we'd be better off waiting till we get home where there's no danger of your sister charging in"

"Stop laughing it's not bleeding funny" Molly swung her legs out of bed and started looking for her West Ham top on the floor, then gave up and unhooked her mother's old dressing gown from the back of the door, before stepping over the child who was still screaming his head off on the landing "I'll go and get you a bacon sarnie ... and probably Bella's head on a stick" She turned back and scooped her little brother up off the floor before popping her head back round the door.

"I can hear Nan downstairs, so the bacon's most probably moody" She giggled "Do you still want some?"

-OG-

Despite the CD still playing at maximum volume on a continuous loop, breakfast was a relatively quiet affair once Belinda had given Bella hell for telling lies in an attempt to get out of doing as she was told and taking Martin out to play in the light covering of snow. Bella eventually went with a lot of huffing and extremely bad grace, but had taken them all with her as she continued to moan loudly insisting that she didn't give a flying fuck what her mother said, she wasn't going to the bloody park and that it had been their Molls who'd promised so she should bloody well do it. Belinda was left in an agony of embarrassment so that she'd apologised over and over to Charles who kept on saying that it couldn't matter less, and Molly was left wanting to shout at her to never mind saying how sorry she was to him, what about her?

-OG-

There was no sign of Bella or the rest as he unlocked the car so it was beginning to look likely that she'd taken them to the park after all and that her performance had been just that, a performance. The snow was already disappearing fast to a greyish slush although the sky was heavy with more to come and Charles had expressed a wish to get going and get back before it started again and made driving conditions difficult, so he'd pecked Marge and Belinda on the cheek making Belinda go all pink and flustered and had been assured of a warm welcome back at anytime. Her mum had cracked a little joke about him maybe bringing Molly with him, which Molly wasn't sure she found very funny, it felt a little too close to the truth for that. There was no sign of Dave anywhere and no-one mentioned him, so Charles didn't either...

"Home?"

"Yeah, could do with a bath, I'm minging, how come you're not ... you always smell bloody amazing even when you should be all sweaty and horrible, how fair is that?"

"I don't and you're not minging, tell you what though, I could do with brushing my teeth, my breath must stink"

"Well, now you come to mention it ..."

"God, sorry" He smiled "Molly, have a look in the glove box there's some chewing gum in there, oh and there's something in there for you, I was going to give it to you yesterday but then I wasn't sure, so I thought I'd wait a bit longer ..."

"I was only joking, you're not stinky ... think it's me ..." She was giggling as she flipped open the glove box but stopped instantly and turned to look at him, eyes huge as she took out the little gift wrapped box and held it, turning it over and over in her hands "What is it?"

"Open it and find out"

"Yeah, I will, but ... what is it?" She looked at him with a beseeching look on her face "Tell me ... or you open it for me"

"No, just open it, come on Dawsey ... look ... " He frowned making a deep furrow appear on his forehead "There's no need to look like that, it's not going to bite, I promise"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: And so on to Bath and New Year ... Thank you for your reviews and I'm sorry for the wait, I can't do any of the bedroom stuff with an audience wandering in and out, I have to wait till I'm on my own because he has this habit of appearing behind me and reading over my shoulder ...and I get horribly self-conscious – everyones a critic !**_


	23. Chapter 23

_**A/N: Thank you for all the messages of support over the last couple of weeks and I am sorry for the long delay in updating, but for those who don't know, I have been enjoying the best of bad health and couldn't start to string a coherent sentence together if I tried (and I did).**_

 _ **I hope that this is okay, I'm a bit out of practise so please be kind, chapter 24 is on the drawing board ...**_

-OG-

"A key?"

All her fingers seemed to have become thumbs as she fumbled around trying to get the sellotape off and get the package open and then raised her eyebrows and looked at him, then looked down at the shiny key in her hand and shrugged, not knowing what the hell to say as he ran his hand over his head and then stroked the stubble on his chin and carefully avoiding looking directly at her.

"Are you asking me to move in with you?"

Molly could hear that her voice was a bit high pitched, squeaky and that she sounded incredulous, shocked as though it was the very last thing on earth that she'd expected ...which it was. Shit, she certainly hadn't thought about it being a key, she'd sort of thought it could maybe be a ring, not that she wanted one of them of course, but still ...

"Nope" He lifted his eyebrows "Why ... what would you say if I did?"

"Dunno, hadn't thought"

Which was a huge great big enormous lie if ever she'd told one. She'd had loads of lovely, lovely daydreams about what it would be like to live with him, mostly when she'd been lying there tucked up in bed with him sleeping on the pillow with his head next to hers so that all she'd had to do was turn her head to look at his face all smoothed out and looking ten years younger as he slept. But they were daydreams. Dreams about having loads of sex and of her making the house all homey and cosy, and of the pair of them being all coupley, the realities of paying rent on that sort of gaffe, or of getting backwards and forwards to work, not to mention her not being able to cook or of having to keep all her stuff tidy, and most of all of not being 100% sure that they were going to be forever, had all been carefully airbrushed out the picture.

"Don't worry about it, it's no big deal"

She'd been about to ask him whose gaffe the key belonged to, but then thought it didn't feel like quite the right time for her to say something utterly stupid like she normally would when she was at a loss as to what to say next, her usual fall-back position of trying to make a joke out of it didn't seem appropriate somehow when his expression showed he wasn't far off from one of his sense of humour failures, something that still set all the alarm bells ringing in her head.

"Innit?"

"Nope, it's just so that you can ..." Charles squirmed slightly, obviously deeply uncomfortable "Look, I know how much you want to get away from barracks and that you hate living there, and it means you can stay whenever you want to _... if you_ want to ... that's the way it worked with Adam, wasn't it?" As soon as the words left his mouth Charles knew he'd made a massive mistake mentioning Adam, he didn't want her to add two and two and think that this had anything to do with her relationship with the man, that he was in some way parading his jealousy "Of course I want you to ... but there's no point in me asking you if you want to "live" with me is there?" he made inverted comma signs in the air as he said the word 'live' "You'd say get lost, that it was far too soon to think about anything like that, and of course you'd be right, but still ... well, just think about it" He raised his eyebrows and smirked, hoping she would smile back and that that would put an end to a conversation he wished he hadn't started.

Think about what? She wasn't actually sure what it was she was supposed to be thinking about, he'd just said that he wasn't asking her to live with him, so what was he talking about? Her moving in to share? To share what exactly? She wished that just for once some bloke wouldn't decide for her what it was she thought, that he would ask and then listen to what she wanted, that he would let her make up her own mind and not make it up for her.

"How would that bloody work Charles? I mean, what about rent? I dunno what your place costs, but I shared things out with Adam, you know ... and yours makes his look like a shed, so one thing's for sure, it's gonna be a lot more than that, innit? More than I've got anyway..."

"That isn't important, it doesn't matter"

"Yeah it does matter, I can't live rent free ... well, I'm not going to if that's what you're thinking and what about me stuff? I'd drive you nuts with me being messy ... you told me once that my mess was your idea of a fuckin' nightmare"

Molly still had this crystal memory of the night in Bath when he'd lost it, how it had started with him getting pissy over her spreading her stuff about, he'd said mess followed her around ... and how his irritation with that had boiled over into a load of shit when she'd kept on asking him what it was that was wrong and ... and how that had turned out to be just about everything about her, and how he'd said that he couldn't be with someone he didn't trust and that he didn't trust her because she didn't tell him stuff and that keeping things a secret from him made her a liar ... and ...

"It was different with Adam, I didn't sleep with him, did I? And I didn't care if he didn't like me mess, he's pretty bloody messy himself, and I didn't bloody wanna sleep with him did I? ... I've already told you we're just mates, Adam and me ... so I dunno..."

There were all sorts of things she hadn't told him but that she had to get sorted in her nut before she even began to try to get him to understand. She couldn't afford to make another mistake. It was too hard when you have to start over again, and although her heart really wanted to believe him when he said it wasn't going to be like that, her head kept on telling her that she needed to think about it very carefully and not get carried away. What about the stuff she'd been planning before he'd come back? Like being independent and not relying on a bloke, any bloke even if she wanted to; like the stuff she'd decided when she was in the Yemen about maybe putting her papers in and working for one of the refugee jobbies, although not in that order obviously, she'd need to get a job first before she sacked the army. That she could perhaps find something with one of the world food lot, famine relief or something to do with refugees kids, mind she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to do because she hadn't had time to research it properly what with getting home and getting back with him and then Christmas and that, so she wasn't even sure if it was going to be a goer or if it was out the question, but she didn't want to hear him say anything to try and put her off doing it. He'd told her once that he wanted her to be brilliant and that he loved her, but that was a bloody long time back now and things change, people change.

"Hey, don't worry about it there's no rush is there, there's all the time in the world for you to decide what you want to do ... look at me, Molly"

Her eyes were huge with anxiety as she chewed at the corner of her bottom lip and turned to look at him, at the worried expression in his eyes and at the deep furrow of the frown that had appeared on his face to match the one on hers, the easy camaraderie of the last twenty four hours seemed to have vanished in a puff of smoke.

"I was wrong ... I was wrong about a hell of a lot of things ... and your mess was just one of them" He snorted a laugh and turned his attention to putting the key in the ignition "I missed it, every last little bit of it" He was still laughing, but it was a fairly humourless laugh that sounded a bit forced to her as he started the car, checking over his shoulder prior to pulling out "Come on, better crack on or they're going to think we're having a row out here and Marge will be out to sort us out"

"Sort me out you mean, not gonna be your fault is it?"

"There is that"

"Creep"

-OG-

Molly stared at her reflection in the mirror and pulled a rueful face as she tugged at the skirt of her one and only good dress. It was definitely clinging in places that it hadn't clung last time she'd worn it and that was only a few weeks back when they'd gone to that bloody party at his cousin's house the day before his birthday. She'd been 100% right when she'd told him that the Baileys and chocolate diet she'd been on wasn't the best and after tonight she was going have to cut out all the alcohol and all the nice things to eat and go on some kind of starvation diet to get ready for going back to work in just a few days. Shit, she hadn't even started with her squats and lunges stuff and could hear her sergeant's voice now in her head yelling at her ... double shit, the bloody woman was going to crucify her ... and it was New Year's Eve when everyone was supposed to feel all positive and full of energy, looking forward to the year ahead, all ready to make changes, but she didn't feel any of that.

Not only was her dress clinging to her tummy and her bum, but her nipples were stood out like bloody organ stops because she was so sodding cold. They'd been here for more than twenty four hours now and she hadn't been warm once, except for when they'd had been in the sitting room sitting almost on top of the fire or when they'd been in bed. The whole bloody house was like a fridge so that in Molly's opinion it was most probably warmer outside, except maybe for the sitting room, and the bedrooms might be posh as hell with nice carpets and lovely furniture and might make her mum's in east Ham look like a doss-house, but at least it was warm there while here the draughts whistling through the windows made it feel like she was getting ready to go out on the east-bound platform at Oxford Circus. Charles had explained that the house having listed status meant they couldn't do anything about it, couldn't put double-glazing in or anything so the draughts whistled through the gaps even when the heavy curtains were drawn.

"Fuuuuuck"

The tears started to stream from her right eye where she'd stabbed the mascara wand in it as she tried her best to make her gob look half-way decent for a New Year's party that she absolutely did not want to go to. She'd far rather curl up on the sofa with him where it was warm and not bother to go out somewhere in a dress that looked shite to spend the evening with a load of people she didn't know. She'd thought that they were going to The Cloisters tonight for dinner, well that's why she'd agreed to come to Bath in the bloody first place, this place didn't exactly hold good memories for her, but he'd promised when he'd said about them staying here for a few days over New Year. But his promise had been made before he'd found that you have to book about a year in advance to get a table for New Year's Eve, so he'd been left having to promise that he would make it up to her.

"What's the matter?"

Charles had wandered through from the bathroom wearing just a towel wrapped round his hips which made her feel cold just looking at him. He didn't seem to feel it like she did, something he put down to growing up in the place and to spending years at boarding school but which she put down to showing off and pretending that he was a fucking superhero so that he felt no pain. When she'd stayed there in the past she'd blamed his dad for the place always being like a fridge, he had this habit of turning the heating down every time he walked past the thermostat so that his mum went ballistic when she noticed how cold it had got, but his parents were still away in Italy and it was still fucking freezing in the place.

"Nothin" She tried but still couldn't get her eye open and was well aware that she sounded like a petulant teenager "Everythin'"

"Are you crying?"

"Nah course not, I don't cry, you know that, I stuck this bleedin' thing in me eye didn't I? And it hurts" It had not been part of her plan to end up with a black eye on top of everything else.

"Well, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it Dawsey?" He put an arm out and turned her round, tilting her face up towards the light with one finger to look at her eye which made it even more impossible for her to get it open "Come here, let me have a look ... can you open it?"

"Nah, stings dunnit, 'n I didn't do it on purpose did I, dickhead?"

"Lovely" He raised his eyebrows "And that's all that's wrong? Just your eye?"

"In't that enough? ... well yeah that and that I hate this dress it makes me look fat but I 'aven't got anything else to wear 'ave I? ... and I'm not gonna know anyone am I? And they're all gonna take one look at me wearing a dress that makes me look cheap and fat and decide that I'm your bit of rough and ..."

"What the fuck are you talking about? No-one is going to think anything like that ... don't take any notice of what your mum said, well, you never normally listen to her do you? Your dress looks fine, it looks lovely and you look beautiful, far more beautiful than anyone else who's going to be there, believe me"

"It weren't just mum though was it? It was your dad 'n all, he thinks I'm too young"

"Who said that?"

"You did"

"Did I? Surely not" He laughed "And if he did say that then he's wrong, isn't he? you're perfect" He stood and waited for her to put her arms up and round his neck and then gave up waiting and pulled her hands up to put them onto his shoulders "They're wrong Molly, my dad, your mum, and anyone else who can't see how perfect you are"

"Really?"

"Yeah really ... now let's see what you've done to yourself, what the damage is" He took the crumpled tissue from her hand and dabbed gently at the lid of her eye as she tried her best to open it, blinking at the light and then grimacing at the black streaks of mascara that he was wiping equally gently off her cheekbones with the tissue.

"Christ, what is this stuff? It won't come off"

"Have to scrub at it a bit, it's s'posed to be waterproof or some'ing only it's not, not very, 'ere just leave it 'n I'll do it, you go and put some bloody clothes on or you going like that, give the girls a treat?"

"Heaven forbid"

Molly didn't do New Year's as such, in her experience it was always a bloody big let down and usually it turned into a bit of a nightmare. That first year her and Charles had been together she'd gone home to east Ham after Christmas and looking back now, she knew that at the time she'd heaved a bloody great big sigh of relief. Christmas with him and his mum and dad had been a strain, she'd been potty about him but didn't really know him, not the him that wasn't her boss and she had been so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing and making a prat of herself that she hadn't really enjoyed any of it, not that she'd told him, but then she'd missed him when she spent New Year in the pub with her lot. She'd spent it arguing the toss with her dad which was mostly a bloody waste of oxygen, mind you so was he, and with her sister who was a knob, and drinking shots with her mum and her Nan who were alright, but she'd been totally out of it by ten o'clock, pissed as a bloody newt. And then last year she'd been with Adam and he'd had to work, so she'd spent it in the wine bar watching him pour drinks and was totally out of it by ten o'clock, pissed as a bloody newt. Looking back now and thinking about it, she could see that there'd been a bit of a pattern to her New Year's.


	24. Chapter 24

_**A/N: It is possible that this should have gone in the M section, but don't know how to do it, so if you are likely to be offended please stop reading after the Happy New Year…. You can see where my mind (or something) has been for the last few days and that I'm obviously feeling a lot better ….**_

 _ **-OG-**_

Her body language had made it pretty clear that she hadn't wanted to go to the party even if she hadn't actually come right out and said so, but he hadn't been worried, he'd assumed it would be all okay once they got there and he'd been right, it had been, for her. But not for him, he was the one who desperately wanted to get away ...

"We've done our duty, showed up … come on, let's push off"

"Your duty, mate, not mine … this lot 'ad never even heard of me before, well, apart from Shelley, and I don't think she knows who I am exactly, she's nearly as well out of it as last time we saw 'er ….. but they're all dead friendly aren't they?"

"If you say so" He ran a hand over his hair and looked round the room at the mix of relatives, friends of the family and a few old friends from his rugby club days, and put a pleading expression on his face as he took her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers "Can't we go to the pub or something?"

She hadn't wanted to come to this stupid party one little bit and had spent a great deal of the afternoon thinking up all sorts of excuses, fairy tales that had ranged from a bad head to bubonic plague and everything in between, but she'd known before she'd even tried them on him that he wouldn't believe a bloody word of any of it and if she was being honest the atmosphere between them was already a bit on the shit side without her making it worse. It had been sort of awkward ever since that crap in the car on Boxing Day … It was bleeding obvious that he was a little bit put out, a bit hurt that she didn't want to do what he ….. wanted, although he hadn't actually said what it was he did want, not really, and she still hadn't told him why she couldn't, she hadn't found the right time or the right words to explain about …. her worries, or about her dreams of doing something different and she knew he thought it was because she didn't love him enough, that he didn't know how scared she was.

An hour into it and she was having a great time until he'd jerked his head telling her he wanted her to go and talk to him where there was no audience. No-one had seemed to be looking down on her, well not that she'd noticed anyhow, and in fact all the people she'd talked to, admittedly most of them middle-aged or older, had been nice and friendly, maybe a little bit on the nosy side wanting to know who she was and what her name was and how she knew Charles and for how long and all that, but nothing else, not the third degree he'd warned her to expect. And although it was now well past ten o'clock, she was nowhere near pissed, which was a bit of a result in itself.

The thing that was getting to him so much was the blonde stick insect with a posh voice and legs up to her armpits, the one who was apparently best mates with another blonde stick insect with a posh voice who had once been married to him but wasn't any more. She kept looking at Molly as if she was taking notes or something and she'd had this sickly smile on her gob whenever she'd caught Molly's eye, which wasn't often because Molly was doing a great job of pretending she didn't give a shit who it was he was talking to.

She was pretty sure that Charles hadn't known that whatever her name was, was going to be there, the horrified look on his unguarded face when he'd first clapped eyes on her had told her everything she needed to know, before the shutters had come down and closed off all the expression from his face. Molly had immediately pretended she couldn't think of anything she wanted to do more than stop at the party, there was no fucking way she was going to allow a blonde twiglet wearing a Victoria's Secret push-up bra trying to make a show of her tits in a horrible black chiffon dress, to chase her off.

Her own black dress might be a bit on the cheap side in comparison and might possibly be a tiny bit too tight …. and too short, but at least she didn't look like a porn star who'd turned up in a nightie, and he was at the party with her and not with Fanny or Fenella or whatever the fuck her name was, even if she was making sure no-one else could get near him, and even if she did have enough mascara on her lashes to make them look like tarantulas, and Molly would take bets that they were false and that twiglet didn't stick the mascara wand in her eyes when she put on the twenty fifth layer, and even if she did have her hand on his arm the whole time and even if she was trying to get him to look at her tits …..

Charles, her lovely, lovely Charles looked bored bloody stiff, which filled Molly with all sorts of affection for him as well as bringing back the night in Cyprus when Fuckface had been trying to get in his pants and Tilly had called him a 'good boy', like he was her pet dog or something. Molly knew he wanted to get away from her, she could tell, but that he was too polite, too much of a gentleman to just tell her to sod off, not like most of the blokes she knew who'd have no hesitation, and now that he had managed to escape her clutches he wanted to shove off down the pub, and she loved him to bits for that as well.

Charles had spent over an hour listening to Francesa talk about Rebecca, she seemed to be under the mistaken impression that he gave a shit, which he didn't. Rebecca and he were such ancient history that Frankie's thinly veiled suggestions of his ex-wife wanting to get back with him almost made him snort his incredulity out loud. He was certain that the stupid cow had got that all wrong, maybe it was her interpretation of something or other, but he was as sure as he could be that Rebecca no more wanted to get back with him than he did with her. There was no way that that was ever going to happen, their relationship was water that had disappeared under a hell of lot of bridges a very long time ago now and all that was left of it that he cared about was Sam … and now there was this girl with the glossy hair and the green eyes who tugged at his heart strings in a way that no-one else ever had, including Rebecca, and he was horribly afraid as he watched her chatting, her whole face lighting up with laughter, that he might have badly fucked things up with her for the second time.

"Not 'aving a good time then?" Molly nodded her head at the twiglet in case he didn't know who she was talking about "With 'er?"

"No, I need rescuing"

"Don't worry, I won't let her get her claws in"

"Thank fuck for that"

She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, then brushed her lips fleetingly across his before leaning against him for a moment, before looking up to see if she'd managed to bring a smile back to his face, smirking as he struggled to control the smile that was threatening to break out despite all his best efforts at being Captain Straight Face. The fact that the stick insect was watching was an added bonus as far as Molly was concerned.

"What did she want?"

"No idea"

He shook his head, unwilling to lie to her but there was no way he was going to tell her it had been about Rebecca. He'd already royally fucked things up with the timing of that stupid suggestion that she should move in with him without making it any worse. Her eyebrows shot skywards as she shook her head slowly from side to side, unsure whether or not to believe him, and then grinned at his mask of studied indifference, snaking an arm round his waist and _hugging,_ her green eyes shining as he grinned back and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

In the end they stayed where they were, to all intents and purposes joined at the hip, with his arm firmly round her shoulders and hers round his waist as they chatted and laughed and circulated and completely ignored all the curious looks they were attracting and then left as soon after the chimes of Big Ben as they possibly could without being spectacularly rude to their hosts. Neither of them had any desire to join in with the orgy of drunken kissing and hugging that followed the shouts of "Happy New Year" and the long, hot and crowded evening made the fresh air and cold damp drizzle outside incredibly welcome.

-OG-

"Come on time for bed"

He rubbed a hand over his wet curls, checked that he'd locked and bolted the front door then turned to pull her towards the stairs as she began to walk in the other direction towards the kitchen.

"Cuppa first? I'll make it"

"Lovely"

As soon as she'd got in the kitchen and flicked the light switch she bundled up her damp hair, raking it through with her fingers before tying it back with an elastic band that was sitting on the side, so that it became a messy waterfall that was shining under the glare of the old-fashioned strip lights, creating a massive urge in him to wind it round his hand and use it to pull her against him as she messed around with cups and tea bags making a hot drink that he didn't want. He wanted to kiss her senseless not drink bloody tea.

"Not so long back I was on this transport plane to some godforsaken hell-hole and this girl, the one I love, was there … she was on the plane as well"

"Is she a soldier 'n all then?" Molly turned her head to look at his face as he perched one cheek of his bum on the work surface next to her, her face and voice the picture of innocent enquiry "Is she pretty?"

"Indeed she is a soldier, an awesome one" He nodded emphatically "I hadn't seen her for a while but …. she hadn't changed much, and no, she's not pretty" He bit his lip and grinned at the expression on her face "She's fucking beautiful….. and she still eats chocolate for breakfast and strawberry laces for lunch" He faked a shudder "So no, she hadn't changed at all, except that she wasn't looking at me, she wouldn't, she was far too busy pretending to be listening to something fascinating on her headphones …"

"I was listening to some'ing fascinating….. Poldark …. and you didn't look at me neither"

"Who said I was talking about you?"

"Sorry" Molly giggled "Just sayin', I'll shut up"

"Good … right, now where was I? Oh yeah, all I could think about was this day when she'd been cooking something, right here, in this kitchen, and how she'd been deliberately shaking her gorgeous little arse at me … and about what happened next…"

"What did happen next?"

"What, you can't remember?"

"Oh, it _WAS_ me now? Go on then … you was sayin'"

"Well" He stood up and bumped her with his shoulder then put his hands on the tops of her arms and turned her round to face him "First of all she kissed me ….. only a little kiss ….. like this … and then ….. she kissed me a lot more and put her arms round my neck ….. like this … and then I lifted her up on here …..just like this ….. Oh no forgot, before that I took her T shirt off …." He was running his tongue round his teeth and laughing softly as he bit at his bottom lip drawing it into his mouth "Like this …" He started sliding her dress up over her hips

"I'm not wearing a T shirt"

"I know …. your dress will have to do instead" He was still smirking as he finished sliding it over her head and dropped it on the chair behind him before lifting her back on the worktop and lifting her arms back round his neck … and then he wasn't laughing anymore as he slid his thumbs under the straps of her bra and started to slide them down her arms, before giving up and putting his hands round and undoing the clasp, hooking it off and throwing it behind him towards her dress, missing the chair so that it fell on the floor.

"You've gone a bit quiet, thought you was gonna talk dirty there for a minute"

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah" She caught sight of the expression on his face and giggled "Nah, you're alright"

"Thank fuck for that, not sure I'd be any good at it"

His breath was hitching in his chest as he gently pushed her legs apart and stepped in between her thighs, leaning forward to kiss her neck and then carrying on down to her breasts as she obeyed her body's demand to get as close to his mouth as she possibly could. He fastened his lips round one puckered nipple and sucked gently, nibbling and running his tongue over first one and then the other, his fingers running slowly down her spine as if he was counting her bones until they rested on her hips, keeping his eyes focused on her face the whole time, watching with hooded eyes as she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and tilted her head to look up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes as he slid her tights and knickers off, lifting her up slightly to make it easier and ignoring the small sounds of protest she was making about whether he was sure the house was empty, that he should check to see whether his mum and dad had come home early ...….. they could come downstairs any minute to wish them a Happy New Year...

"Sshh, stop worrying, they're in Italy" He went back to kissing her neck behind her ear and then down her ribs to her hip bone and across to her navel, dropping tiny kisses all the way down, and then across her stomach to her navel, laughing softly when she tensed and sucked in her muscles and tried to pretend that she was all toned. He wanted to tell her to stop, that he loved how soft and rounded she was and the way her body felt against his, how she 'fitted' him, and how perfect she was.

"They're not here, I promise there's no-one else here, just us, the house is empty ….. just like it was last time"

"Hey" She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to distract him from what he was doing to her as he kissed his way down to the inside of her thigh, and then started to move upwards, something that made breathing very difficult, this was all going a bit fast "This last time you keep on about, did you keep your kit on then?"

"Nope, shouldn't think so"

He found shirt buttons very hard to undo with hands that are not quite steady as she put her hand on him and started to slowly slide his zip down. The feel of her fingers as they touched his erection through his clothes made him close his eyes and gulp, he was literally aching with need as he stopped trying to undo his shirt and helped her undo the top button of his jeans instead, sliding his jeans and boxers off in one go and kicking them free from his feet. She looked down at his jutting erection, about to tease him about the extent of his arousal, but the urge to do anything like that disappeared when she saw the intent expression on his face and the way his dark eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks, stroking her thumb slowly over his bottom lip instead and feeling as a tremor ran through him at her touch.

His hands twisted in the waterfall of her hair as he started kissing and murmuring against her lips, stopping only to take in desperately needed oxygen, before she buried her hands in his hair and tugged his head down to hers to resume the kissing. She managed to get close enough to wind her legs round his waist and to pull him towards her, before putting her hand down and wrapping her fingers round him, inviting him, an invitation that he couldn't have resisted even if he'd wanted to. He knew it would probably be better for them to shift, to maybe move to the sitting room, the sofa or … even the rug and he remembered fleetingly what she'd said about a condom, but none of that seemed important as she began to move with him, slowly at first, tightening around him as his strokes got quicker and harder, and muttering at him not to stop, whispering over and over that she was almost there until that first white-hot bolt of pleasure shot through her and she turned into a mass of tremors, tremors that shook her down to her toes and seemed to go on forever, and even when they finally slowed and stopped, she could still feel tiny echoes of sensation in her pelvis somewhere, just waiting.

He came apart almost immediately after her, shouting at the intense spasms of pleasure that almost set her off again as the feelings that were still there turned into mini after-shocks of her orgasm… meaning she clung to him, breathless and speechless, as he rested his head on her, still breathing heavily, as his heart rate started slowing down to normal and a bead of sweat rolled down his face into the hollow of her neck…..

"You okay?"

He couldn't remember ever feeling anything like this, the feeling of pure happiness as he gazed at her, loving the way her eyes were huge and misted over as she looked at him, and at the loving smile on her face as she put out her hand and stroked his hair back and then giggled, obviously still a bit shaken as she teased him.

"Yeah … don't remember this other time you keep on about though, you might gonna have to do it again …. just to remind me, make sure it was me"

"Of course it was you" He chuckled "You might gonna have to give me five minutes"

He lifted her down, both of them laughing, and held her against him for a few moments to make sure she was steady on her feet before taking his shirt off and holding it out for her to put her arms through the sleeves and then let go to pull on his boxers.

"Come on time to go up to bed I think, don't want you to get cold" He started to collect their clothing from where it was strewn around the kitchen.

"Thought you said you needed five minutes"

He raised his eyebrows and half turned to look sideways at her standing there giggling as she pretended to misunderstand, at how unbelievably sexy she looked wearing nothing but his unbuttoned shirt and an extremely happy smile, and he slowly stood upright, still holding the clothes, grinned then threw his head back to shout with happy laughter.

"Okay, make that four"


	25. Chapter 25

_**A/N: Penultimate chapter and I was going to sub-title it "Debbie's Ear" (she'll know)! Hope that you enjoy this …**_

"You okay?"

"Yeah, never better Boss"

"Don't …." The word was snapped out in an instinctive reaction before he'd had time to think about it as he stretched and arched his back, then propped himself on one elbow to look down at her head on the pillow next to his "I'm not your boss anymore, Molly, I haven't been your boss for a long time"

"I know …. Sorry ….. were just … stupid, I didn't mean …. sorry"

"No, I know …. But … "

Charles shrugged, not wanting to spell it out for her that he hated the underlying suggestion that was in those words that they weren't equals. Molly stretched her legs and rubbed her hand over her stiff neck and tried to ease the crick that had come from sleeping next to him at an awkward angle, before she arching her back and stretching like a cat, putting the back of one hand on his face and gently stroking down the dark stubble in a silent apology. She loved the way he closed his brown eyes briefly when she touched him, eyes that could melt her _….. soul_ with one look but that were a tiny bit worried looking right then as well as red-rimmed and tired, just like hers probably were, gritty and sore from lack of sleep. It had been incredibly late when they'd finally got to bed after being out till gone midnight and then having what was without doubt the best sex of her life, even better than all the other times that they'd had sex, and that was saying something, so that she was absolutely knackered and would most likely have still been fast asleep if it hadn't been for the pressing need she had to get up and go for a pee.

"I need a pee"

"Go on then" He put out his hand and wiped his thumb under her eye trying to wipe away the black smears of mascara that she hadn't got around to taking off before she'd hit her pit in the early hours. She made her usual silent resolution that one of these bloody days she really was going to get her act together and start cleaning off all her make-up before she went to bed, without fail, and that maybe she'd even get around to buying one of them creams and using it on her gob. But she hadn't, not last night, so that now he smirked as he smoothed her hair from her face "God, you look just like Alice Cooper"

"What? Who's she?"

"It's not a she, it's not a woman, Alice Cooper is a he, he's an American rock ba …. Bloody hell, how old do I feel right now?" He ran his hand through his hair as he looked at the way she was shaking her head, bewilderment written all over her face "He's a rock and roll singer, has all this black ….. shit round his eyes" He demonstrated what he meant by waving a finger in a circle in the air near his own eyes "and his hair all over the place" He laughed "He always looks wrecked"

"You sayin' I look wrecked?"

"Well, you do a bit, but I love it when you look like that, it's very sexy" He was still smirking "Go on, I'll keep the bed warm … or make tea if you want some"

"I'd love some, didn't get it last night did I?" She looked at him from under her eyelashes before giggling at the expression that appeared on his face when he registered her double entendre, which she hadn't noticed herself until the words had left her gob "I'm trying to get up the guts to get out from under 'ere" She lifted up the top edge of the duvet and pulled it closer to her chin "Think it might be bloody freezin'"

She'd been still waiting for him to come out of the bathroom the night before when she'd fallen asleep. He'd been in there for what felt like forever, not that she was timing him or anything, but just how long did it take for someone to wash their hands and face or even to wash their bits and brush their bloody teeth? It hadn't taken her more than a couple of minutes to sort herself out so that she'd been just about to shout through the door at him to please hurry up, but then hadn't, just in time it had occurred to her that he might be on the bog or something. But the bed was warm and comfortable and she was tired and sleepy so the last thing she remembered clearly was an attack of the yawns which had made her eyes water and then having to fight to keep them open and then the mattress dipping down when he got in next to her, his arm sliding across her as he tucked her body against his and then nothing, not until her bladder had started screaming at her to get up.

Shit. Never mind what he'd said about her looking like some singer, some rocker, she looked like someone's idea of a fucking nightmare, standing there in the bathroom, stark naked and shivering, nipples sticking out like pebbles in the cold and totally wrecked with her hair a tangled mess, just like a bloody birds nest, with black smears and smudges of mascara all round her red-rimmed eyes. Far from looking sexy like he'd said, she just looked bloody awful.

"Molly …..?" He sounded concerned as he yelled. She'd been so long trying to get rid of the 'Alice Cooper' look by scrubbing at the skin under her eyes with a clump of wet bog roll that he was obviously wondering what the fuck she was doing in there "You okay in there? Tea up"

"Comin'"

She almost ran across the room from the bathroom and dived back into the sanctuary of the warm bed, then pulled the duvet up around her ears. Not only because she was right and it was bloody freezing, but unlike him she didn't have the confidence you need to parade around showing off your bum in broad daylight, so that she wanted to get into the haven of the bed and bury herself under the duvet before he turned back to watch her. It was alright for him, he had a gorgeous body, all that going to the gym and running and that, although in her opinion he could maybe do with putting on a little bit of weight here and there, but that might just be something that would make her feel better. It didn't matter what he said or how long they'd been together, she was still a bit conscious of cellulite and maybe having …. _flabby_ ….. bits whereas he had this massive confidence in the way he looked. He could walk around without a stitch on and not feel any need to be _shy_ aboutanything.

"What time your mum and dad back?"

"Later on this afternoon I think, why?"

"Just checkin'"

"Worried they might catch us at it in the kitchen?"

"Nah ….. that is NOT gonna happen, not in the kitchen, 'n not anywhere where they might catch us and anyway we'll be long gone by the time they get 'ere won't we?"

"What, you don't want to stay and say hello?"

"Nah"

She wanted to change the subject, had absolutely no wish to discuss it, but could hardly say that she couldn't think of anything worse than a nice little reunion with his mum and dad when he'd spent all that time with her lot over Christmas and hadn't complained once, not even when Bella had been a complete knob and walked in on them, something that still made her shudder when she thought about it, talk about embarrassing.

"They love you, you know, Mum and Dad"

"Still? What even after everything? Don't think so"

"Of course they do, especially Mum, you know she said she'll love you till her dying day and she meant it, even if you had decided not to give me a second chance and that you couldn't stand the sight of me anymore, she knows it's down to my own little medic that I'm still here"

"Yeah right" Molly chose not to react to the saving his life shit which always embarrassed the fuck out of her "And even if she does, bet your dad don't"

"Of course he does" He stopped and thought for a moment "Apart from Mum, Dad doesn't actually love anyone, well except for Sam, he loves him, but no-one else"

"Not even you?"

"Nope, especially not me, I'm a sad disappointment to him" He sniffed dubiously at his arm, obviously thinking it was time to change the subject "God, I stink, must go and get a shower"

Molly was about to contradict him, she was horrified at what he'd just said about his father and had been all set to order him to stay exactly where he was and tell her what he'd meant about being a disappointment, something that beggared belief as far as she was concerned, and that of course he didn't stink but for the first time in all the months, years in fact, that she'd known him, even when they'd been in the stinking hot hell-hole of the FOB, his normal citrus and soap smell didn't completely mask the faint smell of male sweatiness, something that she found incredibly sexy.

"I bet I'm worse"

"Rubbish you smell the same way you always do … you smell of you"

"You sayin' I always stink?"

"Of course not, God …." He raised his eyebrows and shook his head from side to side in a show of faint amusement and frustrated disbelief.

She wanted to say it was lovely of him to say it, even if it was complete shit. She wasn't stupid and knew just how sweaty she was, armpits and that, and that there was a distinct smell of sex surrounding her "I smell of you for starters"

-OG-

Despite the steam misting the glass of the shower she could see the glow of his body through it as he stood there happily oblivious to her presence in the bathroom watching him. He was singing and lathering away as the water poured over his head and then down over the planes and valleys of his muscles, over the faint dusting of dark hair on his chest and into the thicker tangle of hair under his abs before running off his body. Molly stood for ages just watching and then took a deep breath and tried her best to muster the sufficient courage necessary for her to do something she'd never done before. A sudden jolt of panic that he'd be finished and out before she'd done anything at all made her take another deep breath and open the door, stepping in behind him so that he turned to look back. He stopped singing and stood absolutely still, not moving a muscle so that even the foaming sponge in his hand hung stationery in mid-air while he stared, seemingly lost for words … and then smiled, his beautiful lop-sided smile.

"Thought I'd save your dad's hot water bill"

"Did you?"

"Nah"

"Thought not"

Neither of them said anything else as, with eyes half shut, he pulled her round to stand in front of him and tucked her under the jet of water making her close her eyes against the torrent as it flowed over her face and her hair and then poured down her back and over her bum and legs. Everything seemed to spiral as he put a finger under her chin and lifted her face up towards him bending his head to kiss her and used the tip of his tongue to tease her lips apart as the water poured over his head again before flowing down over both of them as his hands moved up to cup her face.

She could feel him rigid and hot and strong where he was pressed against her stomach as she automatically clenched her muscles and breathed in, doing her best to hold her breath in a vain attempt to look thinner, instinctively doing what she could to try and make the consequences of her recent chocolate and Baileys diet a little less obvious. His body was so toned and lean with such well-defined muscles that she knew just how squishy she must seem next to him.

"Stop it" He chuckled as he kissed her neck, not bothering to try and pretend that he didn't know what she was doing, and then ran both his hands down her back, his fingers lingering and stroking over where he knew her tattoo was and then cupped her bum and pulled her hard against him "You're beautiful just the way you are, perfect, I wouldn't change a single thing about you" He lifted her hand up with his and held it out in front of them comparing the size and the length of their fingers against each other before laughing softly and wrapping his fingers round hers, bending his head to brush a kiss over her knuckles.

The ability to switch off completely and make her brain stop running replays of the 'be careful, watch yourself, don't get hurt' mantra had proved impossible up till now. Despite all her best efforts it had still kept on popping up and running in her head. She'd come closest to getting shot of it the night before in the kitchen, but now, as their kisses found a rhythm it seemed as if all there was, just him, his mouth and his tongue, them, his body and hers and the water spilling over them, nothing else mattered. He turned her so that her back pressed against him and bent his knees slightly because she was too short for her bum to grind easily against his erection, the tiny groan that escaped him when she did reverberated in the silence that up till then was filled with only the sound of heavy breathing and water running. The world switched off for her when he circled the sponge on her stomach, soaping her body until he discarded it and moved his long fingers to hold her breasts, to cup them easily as he rubbed his thumbs slowly backwards and forwards over her nipples until she wanted to shout out, to beg him to just …. touch her … She didn't know if she'd said it aloud until he ran his hands down her sides and she obeyed the small movement he made with his head and hands without speaking that told her, asked her, to move her feet apart a tiny bit and make it easier for him to slide his hand in between her legs.

The first delicate touch of his circling fingertip had her gasping and making small whimpering noises, so that she reached behind and clasped him with a hand that seemed to her to be inadequately tiny as she circled him. Not that it seemed to matter to him, it didn't appear to be any sort of problem at all as he moved his fingers in time with hers and his breathing got more and more erratic and ragged, also in perfect time with hers as he continued to thrust. The moment that they came apart was almost simultaneous, both of them shaking and filling the bathroom with cries that echoed off the tiled walls and made it a bloody good job that there was no-one else in the house.

It took a few moments for her to stand up straight and stop leaning against him, to turn round and breathe out a deep sigh then lean her head against his chest instead as they let the shower wash away any lingering evidence of the last few minutes. He was cradling her head against him in the silence that was wrapped round them, his fingers buried deep in her hair and against her skull as he waited for her to say something; neither of them were completely sure what to say to get back to reality, both of them slightly worried about getting it wrong.

"Come on, let's get you out before you get cold"

"I'm not cold"

"Good, bloody glad to hear it" He took a large warm towel off the radiator and wrapped it round her before flipping her wet hair free of it and smoothing his hand over to tuck her curls behind her ears so that it streamed down her back and dripped onto the towel at the bottom. Tucking his own towel round his hips he ran his hand over his hair before tugging at the curls on the back of his neck and then raised his eyes to look at her "I love you, Molly"

"Yeah, I know"

"What? finally, she's decided to believe me, about bloody time"

-OG-

He grinned as he stood behind her with his arms round her waist over the top of his thick cabled sweater that looked more like a dress on her that she'd 'borrowed'.

"Tell me again, why am I going to do this?"

"Because you love me, you said so" Molly leaned back against him and looked up trying to see his face as he rested his chin on the top of her head "And I think it's against the law to 'ave egg and chips without ketchup, don't know what your mum's thinking"

"Even oven chips?" He bent away from her to avoid the hand that was about to swipe at him. He'd already been to the nearest shop once to buy the chips but she hadn't realized at the time that there was no ketchup either "Alright, I'm going, I'm going" He lifted the hair that was still damp and kissed the back of her neck "I don't know, other girls want flowers and chocolates but what does mine want? Tomato ketchup"

"I'll 'ave chocolate 'n all if you're offering"

His face was wreathed in a broad smile of happiness as he walked backwards towards the kitchen door with his hands extended out in front of him in enquiry "Anything else?"

"Nah, you're alright, but get a move on will you, the chips are nearly done"

"Molly ….." He stopped just inside the kitchen door and waited until she looked at him, her eyebrows raised as she waited for him to say whatever it was that he wanted her to know "I know I got it all wrong when I asked you to move in with me when I did, but just because you told me to fuck right off, it doesn't mean I'm not going to ask you again … and again, and in fact I'm going to keep on asking until I get the right bloody answer"


	26. Chapter 26

_**A/N: Almost at the HEA, just the Epilogue now in a couple of days – I do hope you enjoy this, and that you have enjoyed the story, I would be grateful; if you would review for me, thanks.**_

Molly mopped up the last smear of egg yolk with a cold chip before dipping it in the remains of the ketchup and wiping it round the plate. She looked up under her lashes and slowly and suggestively licked her fingers one-by-one gazing at him with eyes as wide as they would go, until she was unable to keep a straight face any longer and succumbed to a fit of giggles "Good or what?"

"Lovely, haven't had egg and chips for bloody ages, forgotten how good they are and these" He pointed at his plate "Are without a shadow of doubt the best egg and chips I've ever had" Charles pretended to smack his lips in a parody of appreciation for the excellence of the food and then snorted a laugh as he smirked back at her.

"Yeah alright, no need to overdo it"

"Sorry, so ….. what now Molly, have you decided what's next?" The question obviously took her by surprise judging by the way her grin was instantly replaced by an anxious frown and from the way her shoulders tensed up around her ears, she was dismayed at the thought that he was going to start on about her moving in again, but realized she was wrong as he carried on talking "Are you going to stay and wait for another Yemen to crop up? Or … go for a promotion, it's about time for Lance Corporal isn't it? Actually I'm quite surprised you haven't done something about it already"

"Dunno, 'aven't quite got around to it" She shrugged "Always found it a bit 'ard to plan that far in advance, dunno why, it's just things 'ave an habit of going to shit when I do" She peeped at him from under her lashes as it crossed her mind that he might think she was having a bit of a pop at him, which she wasn't, not really "But I did sort of 'ave a plan, a bit of a one anyhow, but dunno, I'm not that sure now ….."

"What is it? Come on tell me, spit it out"

"D'you remember Obock, the little baby with the gippy tummy?"

"Oh god how could I ever forget her?" He raised an eyebrow and wrinkled his nose, unable to mask the appalled expression on his face at his memory of the smell and of how long it had taken for him to scrub it off his hands, it had seemed to linger in the back of his nose and throat for hours "Oh fuck, don't tell me that you're adopting her"

"Nah" She thought for a second and then sniggered "They probably wouldn't let me" She was still deeply entertained by the horrified expression on his face "Anyhow she wouldn't always smell like that… probably .. it was just that …. looking after her made me think I might sack the army and swap whinging squaddies with blisters and sunburn for looking after kiddies like her, don't know how or if it's even possible, they might not let me, well they won't if they've got any bleedin' sense, but … just s'posing if they did, it'd mean me being away …. a lot"

"And your point?"

"Well, don't you want me to stay 'ere …. with you?"

"Of course I do … and stop saying things like that, they'd be bloody lucky to get you and you'd be fucking brilliant at it, well, at whatever you choose to do, and ….." He paused then smirked "I've told you that before, haven't I? I also know that you'll always come back to me, you promised me once, remember?"

"That was a bleeding long time ago, things 'ave changed a bit since then"

"You haven't, I bet you're still the girl who keeps her promises ….. and even if you don't go off and do something with refugees, if you decide to stay where you are and carry on doing the job you're so bloody good at, one of us is bound to get sent somewhere eventually, both of us probably" He thought for a moment "But that isn't why you told me to fuck off when I gave you my key, is it?"

"I didn't tell you to fuck off, I dunno where you got that from, I never said anything like that, didn't even know if that was what you was askin' me, not for sure"

"Of course you did … what else would I have been talking about?"

Molly shrugged with all the expressive innocence she could dredge up. She knew that he knew her well enough to know when she was definitely lying to him, but she wasn't …. not exactly … she genuinely hadn't been 100% sure about it, he hadn't actually asked her to move in with him, to live with him … he'd just offered that she could share like she had with Adam, sort of.

"You did know" His voice sounded chock full of irritation and frustration "There are times, Molly, when you drive me bloody insane" He shook his head then made a valiant attempt to regain some control as he glared at her, knowing that boiling for a fight with her over it wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. Instead he tried to calm down and picked up the last cold chip on his plate, examining it closely "I might be wrong, but I don't think so, I think it's more that you still have massive doubts isn't it? …. I'm right aren't I? No, don't say anything, you know Molly, I don't blame you if you still feel like that, but I'd thought ….. I'd hoped I suppose, that the thought of sharing our lives might be something that would make you happy, it'd certainly make me fucking happy I know that"

"It was shit"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to do it like that, I just thought it would be ….. I'm not sure what I was thinking, I suppose I got a bit carried away with Christmas and ….."

"Nah, not that, I don't mean that, I meant it was shit without you, I bloody hated it, used to dream all the time that we was still together and then I'd wake up and …."

He picked up and examined his knife and then his fork, then put them down and carefully adjusted them until they were placed meticulously side by side on the plate before he looked up with a serious expression on his face, then leaned across the table and picked up a long lock of her hair and smoothed it all the way to the end before tucking it behind her ear and grazing his thumb over her cheekbone as she pressed her cheek against his hand.

"It was shit for me too" He half-stood and leaned across to brush her lips with his, gently nipping at her lower lip before moving back to sit down again "I'm sorry, I am _so fucking sorry_ , I thought it was the right thing but it turned out I was wrong, so wrong"

"If it was shit for you 'n all and if you knew it was all wrong and that you missed me, why didn't you come and find me? I missed you so much"

He took a deep breath obviously weighing up his words before saying anything, trying to work out how best to say what he wanted to say next "I wasn't going to come back Molly, I didn't think it was wrong, I thought it was the right thing, for you as well as for me ….. emotional involvement is an indulgence I didn't believe in, it was something I couldn't afford so I'd always avoided it at all costs, well, you know that, in my experience it makes you take your eye off the ball, it's messy and people get hurt. You were so bloody young … and you deserved so much better than a washed up, messed up fuckwit like me. I thought I was finished and there you were just starting, and I thought it would be far easier for you if you hated me and then you'd get over whatever it was we'd had, and you'd move on"

Molly was filled with horror as she stared at him, she couldn't actually think straight as she struggled to remember what it was he'd said on that beach in Cyprus when he'd asked her to come back, and couldn't remember him saying anything like that. But he'd bloody meant it just now when he'd said he'd been trying to make her hate him and that he hadn't been going to come back, she could tell from his voice and from the way he was looking down and drumming his finger tips on the table top, as he avoided meeting her eyes, he'd got over her, got over them, had been busy getting on with his life without her, so what the fuck was this all about, what was he doing here?

"What you doing 'ere then? What, change your mind did you, or some'ing? Otherwise can't see what the fuck this is all about ….. I really don't get it" She swallowed, not sure now that she wanted to hear whatever was going to come out of his mouth next, she was horrified at what he'd already said "No matter what, might gonna have to say that you do know that you're none of them things, don't you? … bit of a dick sometimes, a lot of the time, actually, but not the rest of that shit, you're not washed up, not yet, and all that was just you being ….. fragged"

"I know and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have told you" He scratched his head obviously regretting his honesty "I saw you ….. Brize Norton … I walked into the bloody place and there you were, talking and laughing with Fingers and looking as if you hadn't got a care in the world …. you looked just the way you always had, the same as you looked the very first time I clapped eyes on you and I knew in that instant that I'd got it wrong, I thought I was getting over you, but I'd got it all so _fucking_ wrong"

"I didn't wanna _…. move on_ as you call it, it was bloody hard"

"You did though, didn't you? Move on?"

"Nah, I never, not the way you mean, anyhow if you loved me, how the fuck could you 'ave even wanted me to find someone else? Sorry, I really don't get it"

"I wanted to kill him" His voice was soft as he looked up to meet her eyes "Still do a bit"

"Nah, that's not right, none of it was 'is fault, Adam and I, well, you know I care about him, but not the way I care about you, I never shagged him, we wasn't together like that ….. " She decided it wouldn't be the best idea she'd ever had to tell him about their wedding night in Vegas, honesty was all well and good but she couldn't remember it at all and for all she knew it might not even have happened, her and Adam had been so out of it that they didn't know "Snogged him once when I was slaughtered and in bits over you, but that was it, didn't go no further, I didn't want ….. I just wanted you"

"And now?"

She was afraid to meet his eyes; the last thing she wanted was for him to see how close she actually was to bawling her eyes out until for some reason her arms seemed to have made a decision to wrap themselves round his neck at the same time as his lips found her mouth. She was 100% certain that he must be able to hear how loud her heart was thudding as he held her and whispered "What do you think the odds are of us being okay?"

"What do you think?"

There was always going to be a bit of her that was going to worry, the guarantees that she'd been searching for didn't exist, not for anything, so the question was actually whether she wanted to live without him and eventually find someone else and that was the one thing she was absolutely sure she didn't want to do. If it all went to shit again she'd have to get over it again, she'd done it before, even if she had been a total fucked up mess last time.

"The one thing I do know is that it'll never happen again"

His slid his hands round to her back and slipped them inside her sweater to run them up the backs of her jean clad thighs until his fingers lingered for a long moment on her bum.

"You trying to seduce me 'ere Captain James?"

"Yup ... is it working?"

As soon as he moved his fingers over her waistband and touched the smooth, warm skin of her back, memories of the previous night hit him, of how close they'd been in this kitchen and how he wanted more than anything to show her just how ridiculously turned on he was...

"Not 'ere"

"Come on then"

He adjusted the jeans and pants that were strangling him before he grabbed her hand and pulled her along the hallway to the bottom of the stairs before bounding up them taking two at a time and tugging her with him as she shrieked at him to just slow down a little bit before he had them both down the stairs and they ended up in hospital with broken legs or something ...

-OG-

Stroking the arm that was across his chest with the back of his hand, he could feel the way she shivered at the feather-light touch of his fingers drifting up and down making goose bumps appear on her skin wherever he touched. He grabbed the duvet from the bottom of the bed where it had ended up and tucked it round her, his previous experience with Molly told him it was only going to be a matter of seconds before she started yelling about how bloody cold it was in the room. Charles was happy, totally, euphorically happy, the sort of happiness he'd experienced the night they'd had their first ever real date, the night they'd been to the Cloisters and he'd bought her back here afterwards; the night when he'd realized that it wasn't just a crush she had on him, that his feelings for her were reciprocated.

Molly clutched the duvet up to her chin and sat up pulling it off him and leaving him lying back with his arms folded behind his head, he hadn't been expecting it so was too late to make a grab at the bedding to stop her, as she giggled and ran her hands over his body pretending to be searching for something, examining his chest inch by inch and then checking out his scar with her finger tips before moving down into the dark hair of his groin.

"What. Are. You. Doing ? …What are you looking for?"

"Lookin' to see where you put the batteries in"

It took him a few seconds to realize exactly what she'd just said and slightly longer to understand exactly what she'd been insinuating, albeit as her idea of a joke "Oi, you cheeky little … you'll pay for that"

He whipped the duvet off her and raised his eyebrows while he flexed his fingers menacingly in front of her face to show that he meant business as he laughed and rolled her onto her back to tickle her. He was trapping her with his body as his long fingers homed in on her ribs which he knew were by far her most ticklish spot as she screamed and accused him of torturing her and begged him to stop. Pleas that he completely ignored until she told him she was going to wet the bed if he didn't, so that he stopped and grabbed her wrists to hold her hands above her head.

"Say you're sorry and then I'll stop"

"Nah ….. it was a bleedin' compliment, can't you tell when someone's being nice? No need for you to get all arsey"

"Compliment?"

"Yeah, course" She started giggling again and stuck her tongue out in a childish gesture "You know, that you better not ...do anything like that again"

"What, tickle you? Nope, sorry, can't promise that"

"Nah, not tickle me... not talkin' about tickling, I was talkin' about that other shit you pulled, you do anythin' like that again and I'll cover your balls in that hair removing stuff when you're asleep"

"Lovely, lots of men pay good money for that sort of thing" He laughed "They call it personal grooming"

"Do they? Not the way I'd do it"

"Fuck"

"Nah, that's the last thing you'd want by the time I'd finished" She giggled "Charles, can I ask you some'ing?"

"No, I don't want you to try it out and see whether or not it hurts" He put a protective hand over his balls so that she started to giggle again "Nah, not that, although now you come to mention it ….. nah, wanted to ask, did you mean it when you said I could put stuff in your house, you know, cushions 'n that?"

"Our house, and yup, you can do anything you like, within reason"

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"It's a rented house, Molly, you can't get a sledgehammer and start knocking walls down"

"Shit, can't do a Kirstie makeover then?"

"Nope, sorry" He grinned and kissed the tip of her nose suddenly happy as he realized exactly what she'd just told him "Come on, we'd better crack on or we'll still be in this bed when mum and dad get back" He swung his feet over the edge of the mattress and sat up straight, arching his back "Come on gorgeous, let's go home"

"Charles can I ask you something else?"

"Yeeeees?"

"No need to sound like that is there, I was just wonderin' about your dad, about what you said"

"Don't worry about it"

"I'm not, just being bleedin' nosy"

"He wanted me to follow him, be a civil servant like him, so he wasn't too happy when I decided to join the army instead, and be a war monger as he called it, apparently he's into peace and love, not that I noticed"

"Sounds a bit shit"

"Yup, I thought so, and then I let him down, he believes in if you make your bed you lie on it, and in my case the bed in question was my marriage to Rebecca, he thought I needed to work harder at it, called me a quitter"

"Do you want me to take him outside and beat him up for you?"

"Nope, but thanks for the offer"

"You're welcome, what did he say when you sacked me?"

"Nothing, he just said that you were very young as though that made it understandable ... and he was still trying to pressure me back to Rebecca at the time"

"I wonder what he'll say now?"

"He'll accuse me of not being able to make up my mind I should think, come on, let's stop worrying about him"

"Okay, maybe we should get him together with Shazza, they'd 'ave loads in common, or even better, we could set Nan on him, she's well good at sorting dipshit Dad's, 'ad enough practice over the years"

"God help him"


	27. Chapter 27

_**EPILOGUE**_

She wasn't exactly jumping up and down and clapping her hands with unbridled joy like they were in some sort of soap opera, but then Molly hadn't really expected her to, Lisa had never really liked him that much. She still had some weird shit going on in her head about her and Adam and the part Charles had played in their marriage going down the shitter, which was basically nothing, but Lisa wouldn't have any of that so Molly didn't bother to try and tell her anymore. Lisa had known her for just about forever so she knew when she was almost crapping herself with nerves, even when Molly kept smiling and wrinkling her nose at her with the most nonchalant look a shit liar like her could manage. They'd been best mates ever since the days that the only time Molly would have a conversation with a bloke was when she was shit-faced otherwise she hadn't known what the fuck to say to them, when a relationship had meant a rubbish one-night stand with someone who looked good (ish) through beer goggles, or more likely a tequila haze, or at least someone who didn't obviously need a paper bag over his head. And since well before the fucking nightmare that had been Artan.

When Molly thought about Artan now, something she didn't do very often, she secretly thought she should be grateful to him, if it hadn't been for him being a total arsehole and all the shit on the night of her disastrous eighteenth she would never have joined up in the first place so none of the good stuff would have happened. She would never have got to be mates with the lads in 2 Section, or found that she was good at something, who would have thought it, her, Molly Dawes being bloody good at something, and …. she would never have met him. It wasn't very likely that their paths would have crossed without his Lady Luck sending her to the Under Fives as battle casualty replacement, they didn't exactly move in the same circles, well they hadn't used to. Sometimes she found it hard to believe how it was all so different now.

She wished the rest of the lads would hurry the fuck up and just get there so that she could get on with it and get it over with; she was bricking it at the thought of what she had to do. Charles had kept on that he would do it, that she didn't have to because it was up to him but she'd said no, that it had to be her but he was still a bit worried about it even though he kept telling her she'd be brilliant and that she had nothing to worry about. She could feel his eyes kept on looking over to check up on her from where he was standing at the bar chatting away with Brains, but didn't really matter what he was doing, she knew that that was what he did, he kept an eye on her to make sure she was okay, he looked out for her like that and if it had been anyone else she would have found it bloody annoying because she wasn't some pathetic little girlie girl who couldn't look out for herself. But it didn't, she loved the way his brown eyes would go all crinkley at the corners and be all soft and loving when he looked at her, so that she couldn't help wondering why people hadn't noticed anything. Lisa and Adam already knew of course, but none of the lads had said a dickie bird which they would of done if they'd of seen, that was something she was sure of. But now that was all going to change, well it would if only the other buggers would hurry up and get there and she could get it over with.

She took a huge gulp of her Vodka and coke, so huge that some of it escaped out the side of her mouth and dribbled down the front of her 'T' shirt so that she pulled it away from her body and tried to wipe it off with her hand, wet splashes on her tits made it look as though she'd got to the stage of pissed when you spill stuff down yourself because you can't find your own bloody mouth. She definitely wasn't there yet, it was her first of the evening and she was pacing herself, or trying to.

"I take it that you're not pregnant then?"

"What? Nah, who said I was?" Molly glared at Lisa, she didn't like the way that the other girl had moved her head and raised her eyebrows looking pointedly at the glass in Molly's hand as if she'd joined the booze police "Why does everybody always think that? And that I'd be stupid enough to drink if I was?"

"Sorry, just asking" Lisa shrugged "Thought you might be, that's all"

"Well I'm not, first it's me mum and then me Nan, and now you, what is wrong with everyone? Me Nan went on and on as if she didn't believe me and then she refused to tell me what to do when I wanted her to, just kept on bloody sayin' that no-one else could tell me and that I needed to make up me own mind … but that I should stop all the …. fannying around and worrying about what might be out there ….. somewhere …. that I just needed to start thinkin' about what I can't bear to be without" She nodded her head in Charles' direction "She thinks he's me good 'un"

"She thought that about Adam 'n all didn't she?"

"Yeah, there is that"

She heaved a huge sigh of relief when she looked up for about the nine millionth time as the door banged open, straightening her shoulders and getting ready to smile before slumping back in disappointment as the wrong someone walked across the room and waved to someone who wasn't her. Where the fucketty fuck had they got to?

Another drink really wasn't the way to go but she ordered it anyhow, and then grinned her appreciation at Adam as he made it a double on the house for both her and Lisa, giggling as he proffered his cheek and pointed at it asking for a kiss as payment, exactly the same as he always had done in the days when she'd spent hours and hours in this place getting ratted at the owner's expense. She didn't look to see whether Charles had seen and what his reaction was if he had, he wouldn't like it but he'd have to lump it, it didn't matter what she said it seemed like he'd always be jealous of Adam, he said he couldn't help it.

They'd had a serious falling out over Adam's insistence on keep calling her his Princess, something that had started as him ripping the piss out of her and then sort of stuck. They'd been slumped on the sofa nursing varying degrees of hangover one Sunday afternoon both half-watching some shit on the Disney Channel when she'd started to moan and whinge to him about how it wasn't fair that she was never going to have the whole glass slipper thing and that she was missing the swishy haired gene that makes you look good in a tiara so would never be able to do the prince-capturing thing, and had then whinged a whole lot more that she wasn't dainty enough to look good in a Princess ball gown and that it wasn't fair that she looked more like a lampshade that someone had sat on. Adam had thought it was well funny, had pissed himself laughing and had then started calling her Princess, something he'd done ever since but Charles didn't seem to see the funny side at all where Adam was concerned.

Adam hadn't been the only thing they'd rowed about in those early days, horrible lost tempers and screaming insults, that was her, and stern disapproval from him as he'd walked away and refused to join in which had made her worse, and then wonderful passionate sex when they made it up, usually after she calmed down and said she was sorry and he'd argue it had all been his fault not hers, something she secretly agreed with. She'd insisted that she had to pay her way, as much as she could, and he'd got dead arsey over it, had kept saying that he could afford to pay for the roof over their heads and to put the lights on, could even afford to pay for the odd bit of food, and that he didn't want her money but she'd insisted and told him that they had names for girls like that where she came from and some of those names weren't very nice.

The biggest bone of contention between them was the way she'd wanted to mend his father when he kept telling her to leave it. She'd developed a bit of a bee in her bonnet about the way his dad was with him so that she kept coming up with ideas on how to make it better which pissed him off until finally he'd snapped and told her that if she was that keen on sorting a dad out, she should start with her own. Nowadays her and Mr J just got on with it, Molly didn't like him any more than he liked her, but they were a bit civilized about it, she tried not to roll her eyes behind his back and he nodded cordially at her before he walked out the room.

His mum she adored. Charles' mum was very keen on her charity work with the riding for the disabled lot, so that she went to the stables whenever she could get away from the house to help out. The first time Molly had gone with her she'd pretended it wasn't going to be the first time she'd ever been anywhere near a horse. Okay she didn't exactly lie and say she could ride or nothing, there wouldn't have been much point in that the way Charles was falling about laughing, but the more he laughed the more determined she was to _show_ him, and it wasn't her fault she came from east Ham where there weren't a lot of horses around…..

The first thing she hadn't realized was that horses were so bloody big, they all were, she'd never thought about it before and hadn't known there would be such a strong smell of shit, or that she'd end up picking up the shit from out the stables without crying, or that it was such hard work. The one whose shit she'd been shoveling had kept on snuffling at her so that at first she'd thought it was going to eat her, but realised that it might have huge yellow teeth but it was gentle like a pet, a dog or something, although you couldn't get one on your lap and Mrs J said that it was looking to see if she'd got any polos so that Molly vowed that she would go back with packets of the bloody things, she really wanted the horse to like her even if she did smell a bit awful.

Charles had complained that she smelled of horse shit when she'd got back to Royal Crescent but she'd just grinned and gave him the finger when his mum wasn't looking, he hadn't gone with them, had admitted that he wasn't that keen which she'd told him was his loss. Now she was a regular when they went to Bath so that she didn't even notice the smell, well not as much as she used to anyhow.

-OG-

"WHAT? What did you just say, Dawsey? Say that again, I don't believe what I just heard"

"I think you heard me first time"

"What the actual fuck, Moll, I thought this was about you telling us you were off to be Mother Theresa?" Dangles looked round at the others seeking acknowledgement, agreement maybe or perhaps enlightenment from a group of equally gob-smacked faces, all of them looked totally shell-shocked with the notable exception of Fingers who had a knowing smirk on his face instead of the air of stunned disbelief from the others.

"What you grinning at Fingers? You didn't know either because you'd of said, and that was what she told us ….. wasn't it lads?"

"Nah I never, I never said what it was I might gonna want to tell you"

"Yeah you did, it was … you said it bloody months ago … "

"Well, things change, don't they?"

"Can say that again"

She resisted the impulse to do exactly that. Even though it was hard not to giggle with nerves and she was highly tempted to try and turn it into a bit of a joke she could sense that there might well be a sense of humour failure lurking there somewhere waiting to leap out and bite her bum once they got to know the rest of it, they were going to hate it that they'd been kept out the loop when they were supposed to be her mates. She went to take another swig of Dutch courage only to find that her second glass of Vodka had mysteriously emptied itself.

"But who is he, this bloke? Do we even know him?" Dangles was still looking around the group for enlightenment "Does any of us know this wanker, is he one of us? I mean, how come we've never heard anything about any of this before? Not a word, I've heard nothing about him at all"

"I think you'll find it's me she's talking about"

Charles had the biggest happiest shit-eating grin on his face as he walked across and put his arm round her shoulders, hugging her and then kissing the top of her head, before throwing his head back and roaring with laughter at the expressions on the faces of the men staring at them in a stupefied silence of shocked disbelief, with the exception of Fingers who was now muttering loudly to himself.

"I knew it, I fucking well knew it, I should of opened a book when we was in Yemen, but the boss here, he told me I was talking bollocks and I believed him, what the fuck was I thinking?" He slapped a hand across his forehead then ran it down over his face "Plain as the nose on your face …. and as for you?" He raised his eyebrows at Molly who was grinning at him, Finger's bark was always much worse than his bite and she knew he loved her and that he loved the boss and would be heading up the cheer-leading squad once he got over the loss of his money making opportunity "Thought you were my mate, you could have told me"

"Thought you just said you knew"

She was giggling with a mixture of relief that it was over with and happiness, together with a fairly sizeable amount of alcohol. She hadn't been hungry for lunch, had been too churned up with nerves, but half a packet of stale cheese and onion crisps and some strawberry laces for pudding were proving totally inadequate in fighting the effects of the three glasses of vodka that she'd drunk very quickly …. so much for pacing herself.

-OG-

"How's it going with him?" Molly jerked her head in Adam's direction aware of Charles laughing as he chatted to the lads and that they all then looked over in her direction so that she wanted desperately to go and join them but she also wanted to talk to Lisa about something that wasn't Charles related, she was still her mate and didn't want to lose her, especially now that Lisa had dropped all that touchy-feely bollocks that had made her such a pain in the backside.

"It's not, I think he's still too hung up on you"

"Don't talk crap, he's never been hung up on me" As Molly said it she wondered whether Adam had used her as some sort of excuse for not getting involved with Lisa, she had some vague memories of him saying stuff that was less than flattering about the other girl "Might be time to get back out there Lees and let him get on with it, you know show him it's his loss" She pondered for a few seconds "Look around you, there's plenty of blokes here and they're a good bunch, some of them are pretty fit"

"Hey, who are you describing as fit?"

Charles put his arms round her waist from behind and rested his chin on the top her head as Lisa muttered something about needing the loo and left, which Molly didn't believe, Lisa was still obviously a bit shit about him.

"Not you, you're not available …. sorry 'n that"

"I love you"

"I was just trying to get Lisa to tell Adam to stick it and to find someone else, he's being an arsehole ….. I might gonna need to have a bit of a chat with him"

"No you won't, you'll leave them to it"

"Bossy prick"

"Did you hear what I just said to you?"

"Yeah …. course" She giggled "You might gonna need to say it again"

"I love you"

"Love you too"

"I know"

"That's alright then innit?"

-OG-

They had been in the car going home from one of their visits to east Ham when he'd said about how he'd always wanted a wife with a tattoo on her bum, so what did she think?

"Who said anything about a wife? Where you gonna find one of them, not 'ere, not me, told you before, I've done that once and I didn't like it, not gonna do it again"

"You haven't done it with me though have you?"

"You serious?"

Now they were in a wine bar on Guildford High Street with his hands on her hips and her arms round his neck her fingers playing with the curls on the back of his neck as he sang softly in her ear, totally oblivious to their interested audience as they danced, or rather swayed backwards and forwards on the spot to the soft sounds of the background music.

" _When she's lying close beside me_

 _And my heart beats with the rhythm of her sighs_

 _This time the girl is gonna stay …"_

"A week tomorrow Dawsey"

"You will turn up, won't you? Promise me you won't leave me standing there like a prannet in a fancy dress"

"Of course, I can't wait" He bent forward and kissed the tip of her nose "I'll be the one standing at the front sweating …. and dressed up like a bloody toy soldier"

"You'd make a lovely toy soldier"

-OG-

It was dead windy and pissing down with rain, but Molly couldn't have cared less even though the photos would be a bit shit. She was wearing the tiny tiara that Mrs J had got for her and the girl who'd done her hair had put so much lacquer on it to make up for it not being swishy, it was rigid and probably wouldn't move even if there was a hurricane blowing. She felt like the princess she'd once told Adam she could never be, her white gown might not have all the frills and ruffles and flouncy bits of a Disney Princess one, but she felt magic as she walked down the aisle and heard all the murmurs as she went past, it sounded like a breeze ruffling across the place but she didn't look to the right or to the left. She only had eyes for the tall dark man with the brown eyes who had the happiest expression she'd ever seen on anyone's face as she walked towards him.

" _Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today ….."_

 _-OG-_

 _ **A/N: Happy ever after a speciality – I do hope it wasn't too sloppy, but you know me I love a bit of ahhhh – I have tried to make sure that I didn't leave any loose ends, but I'm sure someone will let me know if I have…**_

 _ **Thank you for all the support and for the kind words you have sent, they have meant the world. I am not too sure what's next, I have had some suggestions which I am thinking about, but for the moment there are a lot of new writers out there writing some really good stuff, so will concentrate on reading them for a bit while I decide what to do.**_


End file.
